Josh Brolin reminisces about 'Fart Face' sketch that bombed on “SNL”: 'Why didn't it continue?'

Emlyn Travis
·3 min read
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"Every time I see Bill [Hader] now, he was like, 'How great was that?' And I go, 'I know!'"

Do the words "Fart Face" mean anything to you? They certainly do to Josh Brolin.

Ahead of his third time hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend, the Dune: Part Two actor looked back on a beloved sketch he was in that bombed back in 2008 but continues to tickle him. The trip down memory lane came Monday on Late Night, when SNL alum Seth Meyers reminded Brolin that he appeared in "the first and only 'Fart Face.'"

"How is that the only time 'Fart Face' ever [aired]?" Brolin replied. "Every time I see Bill [Hader] now, he was like, 'How great was that?' And I go, 'I know!' But why didn't it continue?"

"Well, maybe you were having too much fun to notice not a single human laughed during the whole [sketch]," Meyers said. "And, by the way, I say this as a fan of 'Fart Face.'"

As its title suggests (sort of), the sketch features businessmen played Hader and Brolin picking on their co-worker (Will Forte) by repeatedly calling him a "fart face." But when Forte and Hader turn the tables and label Brolin the "fart face," he storms out of the office sobbing.

Meyers noted that the sketch still made the show despite not playing particularly well at dress rehearsal. "You know what Bill said you said to him and Will right before air?" he asked Brolin. "He said you go, 'All right, gentlemen, let's shut these motherf---ers up.' You [knew] it was gonna bomb. The three of you were like, 'There's no way this is gonna play.'"

"I do remember that!" Brolin exclaimed. "We said that right behind the wall, right before we walked in. Literally, it was like, 3, 2, 'Let’s shut these motherf---ers up.'"

Brolin's confidence took Hader by surprise. "Bill was like, 'What are you doing?!'" he recalled, before impersonating Hader by jumping out of his seat and throwing his arms out in confusion.

"That is the legend of it!" Meyers agreed. "It was just three guys who were like, 'We're gonna do our thing. We're gonna love it. It's not gonna be for anybody today, but it will grow in legend over time.'"

Hader previously recalled how the sketch "played to total silence" during "the most-watched episode ever" while visiting The Rewatchables podcast in 2019. The SNL episode, which marked Brolin's first time hosting, featured musical guest Adele, as well as cameo appearances by Tina Fey, Sarah Palin, Mark Wahlberg, Oliver Stone, and Alec Baldwin.

"That day was so highly charged because Sarah Palin was there and all these people, and we saw ['Fart Face'] got moved up," Hader said. "Lorne [Michaels] liked it so much it got moved up because he just liked how committed we were in the scene, so then we were like, 'Oh, Jesus.'"

He added, "It was like, 'All right, here we go.' And it did, it played to total silence, and we were just going like, 'This is awful.'"

Watch Brolin discuss "Fart Face" — and starring in the very first "Californians" sketch — in the clip above.

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