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SNL alum Kevin Nealon reflects on the proposed "Hans and Franz" film with SNL co-star Dana Carvey that Arnold Schwarzenegger passed on.
Posted in: Movies, NBC, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl
SNL: Kevin Nealon on Schwarzenegger Passing on "Hans and Franz" Film
SNL alum Kevin Nealon reflects on the proposed "Hans and Franz" film with SNL co-star Dana Carvey that Arnold Schwarzenegger passed on.
Article Summary
- Kevin Nealon reveals how the proposed Hans and Franz SNL movie was developed with Dana Carvey and Conan O'Brien
- Arnold Schwarzenegger was set to star and co-produce the Hans and Franz film but ultimately backed out
- The Hans and Franz sketches, parodying Schwarzenegger, were SNL fan favorites from the late 1980s and early 1990s
- Schwarzenegger’s busy film schedule and his recent self-parody led to the SNL movie being scrapped
There are plenty of memorable eras within Saturday Night Live, but the late 1980s-early 1990s casts produced some of the biggest stars and magical characters. Among the top talent featured were Dana Carvey, who's been masterful at impressions, and one-liner specialist-turned Weekend Update anchor Kevin Nealon. One of their most popular recurring sketches, sadly never made the transition to film, was Hans and Franz, which featured the two doing their Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions while wearing padded, heavy sweaters that make them look… enhanced. The two would spend each week health-shaming guests and viewers with grandiose feats of strength, bragging about them with matching contorted faces in their muscular poses, imitating their "distant" cousin. With cast member and occasional announcer Phil Hartman introducing the Carvey and Nealon recurring sketch called "Pumping Up with Hans & Franz," which premiered in 1988, with Nealon inspired by the action star's interviews. The sketches were so popular that Schwarzenegger appeared in the SNL season 17 episode in 1991 to endorse the duo, and according to Nealon, he was supposed to join a proposed feature adaptation film like Carvey's other popular SNL duo franchise with Mike Myers in Wayne's World.
Hans and Franz Movie: Kevin Nealon on What Could Have Been
While Hans and Franz's run on SNL ended with Carvey's departure in 1994, the idea to expand into another potential SNL film franchise, like Wayne's World, The Blues Brothers, and Coneheads, was already there. With major creative powerhouses on hand, Nealon shared the story on how the movie almost became a reality, "The unmade 'Hans and Franz' movie. I wrote it with Dana Carvey, Robert Smigel, and Conan O'Brien, mostly in a hotel in Santa Monica. Conan was doing The Simpsons at the time," he wrote. "Dana was doing something else. It was me and Smigel a lot of the time. It was my laptop. I would throw ideas around with him. He would always be eating chicken and he liked to touch the screen of the computer. It was my laptop. I'd see streaks of chicken grease all over my screen."
Nealon added how the film was ultimately scrapped due to the action star's project, "Schwarzenegger wanted to co-produce and co-star in it, but he had 6 films in development at the time. Arnold just parodied himself in 'Last Action Hero,' so he opted not to do this one." Could the SNL film still be a reality? I mean, two aging people trying to find renewed purpose in life, seeking out the hero "cousin" they idolized, only to find out he might not be who they imagined late in life? I mean, that sells the movie for me right there.
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