Talk:More Cowbell

According to this oral history of the sketch, with all of the major participants discussing its creation, the Saturday Night Live cast and director all appear to agree that the sketch was written by Chris Parnell, who revised it over the course of several years. The Wikipedia entry inaccurately attributes its writing to Will Farrell. Instead, his major contribution conceptually, aside from his performance, was deciding to wear a shirt that was too small, exposing his belly as he played the cowbell. As one of the most famous comedy sketches of all time, it seems like credit should be accurately given to the actual writer, Chris Parnell, who worked on it for several years' time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.130.226.113 (talk) 06:01, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

If you read that article a little more carefully, you'll see it was written by "Asher and John Try Comedy". It was written by a pair of comediennes. The whole article is written rather tongue-in-cheek, contains some rather outlandish "facts", and is, in my opinion, a work of fiction. Unless you have some other source that says that Parnell wrote the script, rather than Farrell, I think you should just ignore the above "source". Gcronau (talk) 23:20, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Currently, the photo at the top of the article is of Christopher Walken (as Bruce Dickinson). While he is a prominent character featured in the sketch, it seems prudent that the article for More Cowbell have the titular cowbell prominently on display. Additionally, a photo of the band playing is more representative of the sketch as a whole than one zoomed in on Walken alone.

Ideally, a shot featuring all characters would be used, although the low resolution of the video in most of its available locations, combined with the artifacts associated with the video, mean that most wide shots ultimately do a poor job at recognizably portraying the characters.

Using the official YouTube upload of the sketch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s) a good candidate for a title image can be found at 1:09, immediately when the camera changes shot (use comma and period keys to shift frame-by-frame). The first frame after the cut nicely represents Will Ferrell preparing to strike the cowbell and prominently features his character, the cowbell, and the lead singer, who is irked by the cowbell-playing. This therefore serves as a better representation of the sketch than Walken.

The photo of Walken would, however, work well if moved down to live alongside the Synopsis section.

I have removed this: "The sketch was put near the end of the episode, where more offbeat/odd sketches often air."

This is not true. I have a recording of the original broadcast and it's the very first sketch after Walken's monologue. You can see a timestamp here. Soulnus (talk) 08:07, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

From the end of the first paragraph: "The sketch also features Chris Parnell as Eric Bloom, Jimmy Fallon as Bobby Rondinelli, Chris Kattan as Buck Dharma, and Horatio Sanz as Joe Bouchard."

Bobby Rondinelli is not correct as the drummer, played by Jimmy Fallon. The original "Don't Fear the Reaper" recording featured all the original members of the band. The correct drummer/percussionist was Albert Bouchard, older brother to bassist Joe Bouchard. Rondinelli joined the band in 1997*, 21 years after "Don't Fear the Reaper" and the album it was on, "Agents of Fortune," were recorded. Fallon's appearance may have resembled Rondinelli more than Bouchard, but at the time of the recording, it was Bouchard.

Another item: there was a true cowbell story related to the recording as related by Albert Bouchard in an interview**. He was the original cowbell player. It had been suggested by studio producer, Dave Lucas as Albert followed his suggestions and it made it onto the final cut.

Also missing in the skit was Blue Oyster Cult's fifth member, Allen Lanier. Allen played 2nd lead guitar and keyboards for the band. He was an original member like Albert Bouchard, Buck Dharma and Eric Bloom. The Gene Frenkle character in the skit does not come across as a regular member of the band, but rather some guy they brought in to play the cowbell, providing some comic relief.

• ref: http://blueoystercult.com/History-main.html
  • ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFTFTXDOzAc

Broadlighter (talk) 23:02, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

If we're going for accuracy, didn't Buck sing on that track, but the sketch has Eric singing? Even so, if the sketch implied Jimmy to be Bobby, why bother mentioning Albert? Gene and (this) Bruce don't even exist, so clearly the sketch exists outside reality. Why even bother with pointing out the true band members for the real time in history when it's not accurate to begin with? 209.6.200.92 (talk) 12:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Is it worth deleting this page? The sketch isn’t funny or noteworthy in any way. If we retain this page, does wiki have to have an article on every comedy sketch ever? ~2025-41639-93 (talk) 23:25, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

With dozens of references, it's obviously notable. Most sketches are not, so most don't have articles. Station1 (talk) 08:29, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Bobby Rondinelli did not become BÖC's drummer until 1997 more than 20 years after DFTR was recorded.

Fallon on drums should mean he was portraying Albert Bouchard who was their original drummer through 1981 (and claims to be the one who actually played the cowbell, though others have claimed that also). ~2026-12833-30 (talk) 12:39, 27 February 2026 (UTC)