Bill Hader and Fred Armisen dropped by Late Night on Tuesday, and while there, Hader revealed the origins of the great SNL recurring sketch “The Californians,” in which every character has an exaggerated Valley accent and is constantly rattling off excruciating details of the LA highway system. It turns out that this bit was originally just a way for the cast to kill time while waiting for Lorne Michaels to arrive at table reads.
Fortunately, Armisen and writer James Anderson saw the bit’s potential, and we got one of the best SNL sketches in recent years—even if an ad-lib from Armisen almost threw the first ever performance off course.
