In 1992, Kevin Nealon donned suspenders to play Larry King in a sketch focused on the marital troubles of Burt Reynolds (Phil Hartman) and Loni Anderson (Julia Sweeney). To get the estranged pair to open up on camera, Nealon’s King at one point confesses, “On my left foot I have six toes.”
One year later, “SNL” sent up King’s legendary interview with the reclusive Marlon Brando — with Kevin Nealon channeling King and a fat-suited John Travolta playing up Brando’s eccentricity. Though the sketch somehow skips King and Brando’s real-life kiss on the mouth.
In a 1996 cold open, Nealon’s King tried to take the reins of an interview with a rambling Ross Perot (who was in the midst of his second long-shot bid for the presidency): “Larry, I see you’re glazing over, you’d rather be talking to Teri Hatcher about her bikini wax.”
“SNL” needled King for his 1997 marriage to his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, with a version of the wedding speeches from the likes of CNN boss Ted Turner (Will Ferrell) — and Norm Macdonald’s King delivering his speech in the rat-a-tat non-sequitur style of his USA Today columns.
In 2007, Fred Armisen donned oversize glasses and suspenders to play King interviewing Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (Amy Poehler) about her statement that Dumbledore was gay.
Armisen returned as King in this 2009 sketch about sex scandals in the news, with Drew Barrymore as a media analyst who notes that “Men like to put their weiners inside things.”
In a January 2010 cold open, Fred Armisen’s Larry King tries to broker peace between Jay Leno (Darrell Hammond) and Conan O’Brien (Bill Hader) over who would host NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”
Just before King’s CNN retirement, Armisen returns as King with some jokes about his many marriages (“That’s right at least eight women have had sex with this”) and his age (“It’s the worst volcanic eruption I’ve seen since the summer I spent in Pompeii — that was 79 AD”).
Leave a Reply