“Mike Schur, who wrote for SNL and The Office before creating Parks and Rec and many other TV shows, told me something eye-opening,”Pablo Torre said this week on his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. “Mike told me that out of all of theSNL auditions he has ever seen — all of which happen to occur in front of the show’s creator Lorne Michaels — nobody has ever made him laugh harder thanWill Forte.”
Forte almost avoided the audition altogether, the comic revealed this week on Torre’s show. He was a writer onThat ‘70s Show, which had just been picked up for two more seasons. Forte had never enjoyed that kind of job security — plus, he was terrified to try out for SNL. But Michaels talked him into auditioning, with the support of his sitcom bosses.
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Much of the material in Forte’s try-out eventually made it into SNL sketches. There was Tim Calhoun, the whisper-quiet candidate for President of the United States.
“I did a speed reader, which I also did on the show,” Forte said. “And I did a couple impersonations: Michael McDonald and Martin Sheen. Both of them very bad impersonations.”
But the bit that probably made Schur collapse into hysterics was The Gold Man, a sketch Forte performed with the Groundlings. “It was something that was very dirty.” Pablo Torre Finds Out can be NC-17 when it needs to be, assured the host, encouraging Forte to share his lewd routine.
Forte explained that his character was one of those street performers who dressed entirely in silver or gold, remaining frozen like a statue until tourists dropped money in his hat. Those coins earn a couple of herky-jerky, mechanical movements from the metal man, who freezes again until the next tip.
“So my thing was, this guy gets his money stolen,” said Forte. But until someone throws a few coins in his cap, he can’t move to chase the thief. When someone finally makes a donation, Gold Man tries to go after the crook, but he’s long gone. A crowd gathers, wondering why Gold Man is so sad. Cue the music for Forte’s Gold Man Song:
Just because I'm a man made of gold
Doesn't mean I'm made out of money
But the calling I found is to give people pleasure
Through incredibly precise robotic movement
That's why I come out to the streets
To help me make ends meet
And I work real hard
To fill up that jar
But then a bad apple ruins the barrel
Heart of gold!
24 karat
But through all the pain
I grin and I bear it
Heart of gold!
I'm living a golden dream
And anyway you slice it
We're all on the same team
At this point, Forte invites the crowd to sing the chorus along with him. It’s also where the song takes a turn into NSFW territory:
Heart of gold!
But it don't make me no saint
Cause I got a little secret
I suck (bleep) for my face paint
Come on, everybody, sing it with me!
I suck (bleep) for my face paint
I suck (bleep) for my face paint
(Bleep)
Face paint
I suck (bleep) for my face paint
“That's how I ended the thing,” Forte said sheepishly. “And I walked up to Lorne. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘Sorry for all the (bleeps). And then I got the job.”