Comedians are usually known for their best bits, but Chris Farley was so much more than just a
fat guy in a little coat. This is the story behind the SNL star that was taken too soon.
Undoubtedly, one of Farley's most hilarious bits is "Fat Guy in a Little Coat." Even in "Tommy
Boy," a movie that's 90 percent Farley schtick, it's a standout. In a moment when Richard,
played by David Spade, grows exasperated with the buffoonish antics of Tommy,
played of course by Chris Farley, Tommy grabs Richard's tiny blazer, puts it on, and chants
"Fat guy in a little coat. Fat guy in a little coat."
It feels like an organic moment, even improvised, and that's probably because
it came from Farley and Spade messing around in real life. Spade said during a Reddit "Ask
Me Anything" session that Farley would frequently do the bit. Spade recalled,
"He would say, 'Davey... turn around,' and I said, 'If this is Fat Guy in a
Little Coat I'm not turning around, it's not funny anymore.' And he would say 'No,
I've got a whole new thing I'm doing.' And then I'd turn around, and it would be him
in my Levi jacket, and he would say 'Fat guy in little coat! Don't you give up on it!'"
Actor Bob Odenkirk and Chris Farley were quite the dynamic duo at the
famed Second City comedy theater. Getting a jump on any NBC-funded collaboration,
Odenkirk and Farley created for the Chicago stage the character of Matt Foley,
the woefully ineffective, perpetually-screaming motivational speaker who tries to scare kids
straight by warning them they could wind up just like him.
"I am 35 years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van down by the river."
The name of the character comes from a close friend of Farley's. The real Matt
Foley did much better for himself than the fictional one. He and Farley played rugby
at Marquette University together. He went on to become a priest in suburban Chicago,
and he led Farley's funeral service in 1997.
Across his half-decade on "Saturday Night Live," Chris Farley established
a few recurring characters, the strangest among them was the character Chris Farley.
From 1991 to 1993, Chris Farley headlined a sketch called "The Chris Farley Show," a
mock talk show in which he held nervous, shaky, one-on-one conversations with stoic celebrities
like Martin Scorsese and Paul McCartney. The questions weren't very probing: Farley would
nervously ask the guest if they remembered hugely monumental moments from their career.
"And you were chained to the thing and you couldn't get away?"
"Yeah, yeah. I remember."
"That was awesome."
Longtime "SNL" writer Tom Davis came up with the idea for "The Chris Farley
Show" and developed it with Jim Downey. They were inspired by Farley's behavior
around the "SNL" offices — he'd ask them if they remembered a famous
sketch from the '70s and then recreate it for them, right there, by himself.
Davis and Downey then submitted the sketch's script for consideration as a joke,
thinking it was too niche. To their surprise, executive producer Lorne
Michaels loved it and placed it into a 1991 episode hosted by Jeff Daniels.
Arguably the most famous Chris Farley "Saturday Night Live"
sketch was "Chippendales Audition," airing in 1990. The bit found two men
in a dance-off to land the last open spot in the Chippendales dance troupe.
The joke was that the guys were played by Hollywood heartthrob and "SNL" guest host Patrick
Swayze and Farley. Swayze's character won, but not before Farley careened shirtless around the stage,
his large stomach on display. It's the first "SNL" sketch where Farley had the main role,
and castmate Mike Myers thought it was magical. He said in the documentary "I am Chris Farley,"
"After the Chippendales, we were like, 'Oh, this guy's going to be a giant.
He's going to be a huge star.'"
Future "Better Call Saul" star Bob
Odenkirk was a member of the "SNL" writing staff at the time, and in his 2022 memoir
"Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama," he discussed his distaste for "Chippendales Audition,"
then and now. He was disappointed that the sketch got so much attention and praise.
"I know it confirmed Chris's worst instincts about being funny,
which was how he proved his worth — that getting laughed at was as good
as getting a laugh [...] Shame and laughter are synthesized in the worst way. F— that sketch."
Farley's co-star Chris Rock shared a similar sentiment in "The Chris
Farley Show," calling the sketch out for body-shaming the comic. Rock said,
"There's no comic twist to it. It's just f—ing mean."
Two years after his termination, Chris Farley returned to "Saturday Night Live" as a guest host,
and it was not an easy week for anyone. Farley was supposed to bring along a sobriety coach;
but he instead showed up ready to drink. Apparently, the cast and crew could all
tell that Farley was in bad shape. "SNL" boss Lorne Michaels recalled to Rolling Stone,
"He was not in shape the way he had been five years earlier. And
while I felt good about the show, I think he was spent by [air time]."
That episode opened with a twisted, but apparently honest, sketch in which Michaels
is concerned that Farley is too unstable to host the show. Cast member Tim Meadows reassures him,
claiming that Farley has gotten better. Farley then shows up,
and to prove his mettle, introduces his sobriety sponsor: Chevy Chase,
another former "SNL" cast member who also struggled mightily with substance abuse.
Later in the show, after Farley grew visibly winded during a sketch,
Norm Macdonald struck out with a "Weekend Update" joke. He brushed it off and said,
"That one wasn’t very good, but… Try to laugh anyway because it helps Farley have a little rest."
That "SNL" episode turned out to be the last time Farley would ever perform for an audience.
Farley was a big guy, but he carried himself on screen and on the "SNL" stage with the grace of an
athlete, or even a dancer. That made his physical comedy and stunt work all the more impressive.
It's probably not too much of a surprise, then, to learn that young Chris Farley was an
extremely talented and accomplished athlete. He was on the heavier side as a child and,
despite not having the body one would usually associate with a
swimmer, he was positively dolphin-esque. His brother Tom Farley said to Rolling Stone,
"Chris would get up on the blocks as a 10-year-old and kids would start
snickering at him. Then he'd hit the water with those big, broad shoulders of his,
go into the butterfly stroke, kicking up this rooster tail, and leave those kids in the dust."
Chris Farley did have the traditional build of a football player, and as a high schooler
in Madison, Wisconsin, he made the all-city team as a defensive lineman. He had a dream of going
pro after school, but when he graduated he realized that at 5'9" and 230 pounds,
he probably wouldn't be big enough to be an effective NFL player.
Beneath the humor, Chris Farley often played sensitive, hurt,
and even broken characters. Farley also lent a boisterous energy to almost every role he played,
and when the cameras weren't rolling, he could apparently be just as wound up as the characters.
On an episode of "The Late Late Show with James Corden," David Spade recalled that
when the cast of "Tommy Boy" arrived for filming in Toronto, Farley felt under the
weather and went to bed early, so Spade went out to grab a drink with co-star Rob Lowe.
Farley heard about that innocent friend date, and apparently, he was the extremely jealous
type. Spade explained that upon returning to set, Farley snidely asked him about
his hangout with Rob Lowe. The jealousy then greatly escalated later that day.
Spade recalled that, during lunch, Farley walked up to him and purposefully stepped on his hand.
"And then I got up and I threw my Diet Coke on him. It was straight out of 'Atlanta
Housewives’ or something. And then he threw me down the stairs, and then they said 'action.'"
Chris Farley was a religious guy throughout his lifetime,
raised in the Roman Catholic faith. He was educated in parochial schools
according to The Bozho, attending the Catholic-affiliated Marquette University.
In his adult life, that spirituality manifested as a commitment to community
service. Farley did a lot of hands-on charity work, even after he ascended to
stardom as one of the most famous and recognizable comedians on the planet.
According to the documentary "I Am Chris Farley," in his days as a performer with
the Second City improv troupe, he'd never accept payment for charity shows,
saying that his salary should go to whatever charity the performance benefitted.
After he moved to New York for "SNL," Farley frequently volunteered at shelters and unhoused
meal centers, and he also made visits to pediatric wards at local hospitals. Most of
his closest friends didn't even know that Farley did all that stuff until long after he died.
Farley struggled with addictions to drugs and alcohol, and he sadly lost that war
on December 18, 1997. The comedian-actor was discovered in his Chicago apartment
after reportedly going on a four-day bender. But Farley wasn't exactly a reckless junkie,
or a live fast/die young kind of guy — he desperately tried to get clean.
In just the last two years of his short life, Farley entered rehabilitation facilities 17 times,
which is to say nothing of other attempts at a healthier life, such as quitting substances
cold turkey, weight-loss programs, joining Alcoholics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous, and
interventions from friends and coworkers. Farley even checked himself into the famous Hazelden drug
rehab center in Minneapolis just before his death, but he always struggled to fully quit for long.
"You're gonna die from that s–t, buddy. You gotta stop,
you gotta stop. It's not gonna end right, and…there you go."
That commitment extended to movie sets. The last film Farley worked
on was the adventure comedy "Almost Heroes." During the first week of shooting in 1997,
Farley was drinking so much that when producers found out, they threatened to
shut the movie down. That led Farley to hire a sobriety guard, who hung out with him for
the duration of the shoot, making sure he didn't ingest any illicit substances.
Producer Denise Di Novi even found Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for the actor to attend.
Prior to his death, Chris Farley completed his work
on "Almost Heroes" and had several potential movies waiting for him,
but there was one other one for which he'd almost finished his work — and it could've
combined his fantastic gifts for comic yelling and playing sensitive, misunderstood characters.
Farley had been cast in the title role in "Shrek," and he'd recorded about 85
percent of his lines. Production held up for a year while the filmmakers decided what to do,
even considering employing a Farley sound-alike to record the final 15 percent of the dialogue.
Finally, producers decided to recast and start over with a brand-new actor:
Mike Myers, Farley's old "Saturday Night Live" castmate. Myers' interpretation of the character,
which became the foundation of a blockbuster "Shrek" franchise,
was very different from Farley's, as leaked rough footage later showed. Farley's take
was much more understated and even dramatic than Myers' broadly comic, Scottish-accented version.
Chris Farley was among the biggest comedy stars in the world when he died in 1997,
and he was young — just 33 years old. He likely had a long career in front of him,
and his death brought an end to a number of intriguing projects that
could have shown Farley was capable of a lot more than just broad, physical comedy.
He had an interest in starring in a film based on Mordecai Richler's cult-favorite
humor novel "The Incomparable Atuk," a satire about an Inuit who leaves Alaska
for the first time and experiences culture shock in New York City.
Farley also nearly starred in a movie version of "A Confederacy of
Dunces," the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic novel about an arrogant,
overeducated loser living amongst colorful characters in 1960s New Orleans.
It's safe to say Farley could have even scored himself some Oscar buzz for another
project he had in the works; the starring role in a movie about old-time Hollywood
star and scandal magnet Fatty Arbuckle, with a script written by David Mamet.