| Bill Brasky | |
|---|---|
| Saturday Night Live skit | |
Bill Brasky stares down at the gang in the skit, Holiday Inn |
|
| Written by: | Will Ferrell Adam McKay |
| Stars: | Alec Baldwin Will Ferrell David Koechner Mark McKinney Tim Meadows John Goodman Ana Gasteyer |
| Timeline: | 1996–1998 |
Bill Brasky was the subject of a series of sketches on the television sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live between 1996 and 1998. The sketches were written by cast member Will Ferrell and writer Adam McKay.
The format of the sketches resembles the short-form improv game "Two Describe a Third." Three or four friends (known as the "Bill Brasky Buddies") gather in a public place to drink Scotch, smoke cigars, and loudly reminisce about their mutual acquaintance Bill Brasky. While the friends refer to Brasky in both present and past tense on occasion, it appears that Brasky is still alive: some sketches end with Brasky's appearance via a forced perspective shot that makes him look like a giant. (One sketch, set at Brasky's funeral, ends with Brasky breaking out of the coffin holding a glass of Scotch.)
The discussions begin with an agreement that "Bill Brasky is a son of a bitch," and then proceeds to Brasky's superhuman accomplishments, usually focused on his huge size, virility, celebrity connections, amazing tolerance for drugs and alcohol, and reckless disregard for human life. The stories of Brasky's life and seemingly legendary accomplishments are exaggerated to absurd levels in the American tradition of tall tales.
The Brasky Buddies are all apparently salesmen who worked with Brasky, as they frequently state that he was "the best damned salesman in the office," though he was also described as "the best damn trader on the floor." At the end of one sketch, Bill Brasky appears and claims to have "cornered the market on booze," and offers everyone a drink. The Brasky Buddies all have red cheeks and red noses (apparently due to the large amounts of Scotch they consume), and extremely large, white teeth (for unexplained reasons). They appear to be coming from a sales conference or a business meeting, and by the time the sketch begins, they are very drunk.
Typically, the three cycle through the same genres of comment four or five times. The first buddy will begin a long anecdote about Brasky, interrupted by the second drunkenly blurting out something embarrassing (e.g. "I'm a convicted sex offender", "Every morning I crap the bed"). The buddies then exchange several shorter claims about Brasky. The cycle will then repeat, starting with the second Brasky Buddy, getting more outrageous each time around. At some point a man not party to the original conversation, usually played by Tim Meadows, will interject with "Are you guys talking about Bill Brasky? I know Bill Brasky!" and be welcomed into the group.
If their stories are to be believed, Brasky is enormously tall and heavy, can eat anything, can tolerate any amount of drugs and alcohol, is superhumanly tough, possesses a variety of other superhuman powers, has cheated death on numerous occasions, has no regard for the well-being of others, and has caused the death and maiming of many people. Many of Brasky's "accomplishments" are downright abhorrent, and all of the salesmen have been his victim at one time or another, but they are all celebrated with the same gusto. At regular intervals, they raise their glasses to toast him, shouting "To Bill Brasky!"
According to the "Airport" sketch, Brasky's full name is William Robert Brasky, and he has a wife and a young daughter named Debbie. The buddies often claim that Brasky has fathered numerous illegitimate children, sometimes with their own wives.
While there have been no further actual Bill Brasky sketches, a sketch called Mr. Willoughby appeared on the January 14, 2006, episode of SNL and followed a very similar format. Framed as a trailer for a movie based on a lost Jane Austen novel of the same title, the sketch featured Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey and host Scarlett Johansson as a trio of Victorian sisters rhapsodizing about one Mr. Willoughby, "the most eligible bachelor in all of Upper Cornholeshire." Like the Brasky Buddies' stories, the sisters' descriptions of Willoughby steadily grow more and more bizarre, and they recount even the most repugnant facts ("His teeth are like sharp pieces of corn!") with an attitude of lovestruck awe. At several points the three sisters sigh, "Mr. Willoughby!" in unison, much like the Brasky Buddies' periodic toasts of "To Bill Brasky!"