Saturday’s Zach Galifianakis–hosted SNL was a weird one, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a sketch cut after dress rehearsal was super weird. “Kanish” tells the story of a fake seventies cop show that was doomed by its ill-timed freeze frames. Other than being really weird and funny, it’s notable for being one of Bill Hader’s favorite sketch ideas that never went to air. In an interview with Splitsider, Hader explained coming up with the idea with John Mulaney last year:
“There’s another sketch called ‘Knish’ that we did with Steve Buscemi. A cop show called ‘Knish.’ And that was inspired by something that Paul Rudd’s son said to me. Where he said ‘open book knish.’ He just said this term ‘open book knish’ and I laughed really hard. So we wrote a 70s cop show, and I played Judd Hirsch. And I’d say ‘Greetings and salutations Knish…’ And John Mulaney and I wrote it and it made us laugh. It was by the creators of the Freddie Prinze Jr., Charles Durning show ‘Taco and Fat Ass.’ [laughs] ‘It’s Knish… in color.’ And it was great.”
Watch the sketch below, because Bill Hader does a Judd Hirsch impression and — [freeze frame].
