Drunk History recreates the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky chess match with Taran Killam in this exclusive premiere (VIDEO).

Exclusive: Taran Killam and Jake Johnson Recreated the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky Chess Match

Exclusive: Taran Killam and Jake Johnson Recreated the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky Chess Match

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Brow Beat
Slate's Culture Blog
Oct. 5 2015 8:32 AM

Taran Killam and Jake Johnson Recreated the Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky Chess Match

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Taran Killam as Bobby Fischer and Jack Johnson as Boris Spassky.

Photo courtesy of Comedy Central.

For a very short window of time in the early ’70s, America was obsessed with chess. And even now, books and movies about the 1972 World Chess Championship, and American wunderkind Bobby Fischer in particular, still tend to take the game very seriously, including the recent biopic Pawn Sacrifice, starring Tobey Maguire.*

Thankfully, Drunk History has injected a bit of levity into that the events that led up to that iconic match between Fischer and Russian defending champ Boris Spassky, recruiting SNL’s Taran Killam and New Girl’s Jake Johnson to play the respective rivals. The casting works quite well—both actors are great at physical comedy and exaggerated facial expressions. And the drunken recollection pulls off some funny zingers as well: “Life Magazine called it the ‘Match of the Century,’ says the inebriated narrator. “And, in retrospect it was, because…it was the ‘Match of the Century!’” Check out an exclusive clip from the upcoming episode, airing Tuesday, below.

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Correction, Oct. 5, 2015: This post originally misspelled Tobey Maguire's first name.

Aisha Harris is a Slate culture writer and host of the Slate podcast Represent.