It seemed as if everyone who's anyone in Hollywood attended NBC's Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special on Sunday. Previous SNL cast members, including Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler, recurring hosts, including Alec Baldwin and Justin Timberlake, and musical guests, including Miley Cyrus and Paul McCartney, appeared on stage in Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center in New York City to celebrate Lorne Michaels' iconic sketch comedy show. While many stars walked the red carpet, including Chris Kattan and Rob Schneider, not all of them reprised their roles during the three-and-a-half-hour event.
Cheri Oteri, who was a cast member from 1995 to 2000, didn't have the opportunity to bring back her iconic original characters, including Spartan cheerleader Ariana, grouchy neighbor Rita DelVecchio, hyper child Althea McMahonaman, public-access TV personality Mickey "The Dyke," disgruntled employee Nadeen, prescription pill addict Collette Reardon and Morning Latte host Cass Van Rye.
Given that cast members Bill Hader and Kenan Thompson starred in several sketches, how come Oteri appear on camera? "To be fair, I have to say that I wasn't originally able to go," she explained on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live Monday, "and then just a couple of days ago, I was able to pull it together."
WWHL's other guest, Dylan McDermott, hosted the show in 1999. He and Oteri agreed that they were most excited to see Bill Murray during the special. "You know what? He's my all-time favorite," she said.
Which was more fun: attending the special or the star-studded after-party? "I really enjoyed the show, but the after-party when Prince sang with the B-52s with [Kate Pierson], I was like, 'Woo!'" Oteri raved.
"Who got drunkest?" host Andy Cohen asked.
"I heard..." Oteri began before deciding to play coy. "Her last name's a hotel."
"Hilton!" Cohen shouted. "Paris Hilton!"
Oteri replied, "Maybe she was just enjoying herself."
In the same episode, Oteri also adlibbed in character as Collette, the prescription pill addict. "While we're making you dance like a monkey, we got a lot of tweets just asking you to say, 'Simmer down now,'" Cohen told the star, referring to Nadeen's catchphrase. "We're really making her work tonight."
Cohen also asked Oteri how she came up with the idea for "The Office Skank," a sketch that ran in May 2000 when John Goodman hosted the show. "There's somebody that worked at SNL that was always [making] innuendo from nothing. It's like, 'Can I borrow a pencil?' 'Oh, I'll give you a pencil!' And I'm like, 'Jesus! Somebody's horny!'" the actress recalled. "So I always said you should do somebody in the office that is just really bad innuendo, and then when the person tries to shine you, you explain it, as if they didn't get it. He never did it, so they said, 'You should do it.' And I said, 'Oh, that would be disgusting.'"
Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special was a ratings hit, with 23.1 million total viewers overall.
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