Jason Sudeikis and Mike O’Brien Revive an Unproduced SNL Sketch on Seth Meyers’ Second Chance Theatre

Some of the weirdest, funniest and best Saturday Night Live sketches never make it on the show. If you’ve seen any of the “cut for time” sketches that have been uploaded to the show’s official YouTube page over the last few years, you know what we’re talking about. Those sketches—performed at dress rehearsal in front of a live audience, and recorded for posterity—are at least produced like a real SNL sketch. There are countless other sketches and ideas that don’t make it past the table read, or even the pitching process. And with the number of great comedy writers who have worked on that show, it stands to reason that at least some of those rejected ideas will be better than stuff that actually made it to air.

That’s the idea behind “Second Chance Theatre,” a recurring bit on Late Night with Seth Meyers where old SNL writers and cast members perform sketches that didn’t pass muster with Lorne Michaels. Meyers brought the concept back last night, with guest stars Jason Sudeikis and Mike O’Brien reviving a scrapped sketch from 2010 called “Unicorn.” Watching it today, it might be a good thing it didn’t air back then; O’Brien’s single season as a cast member was still a few years away, and I can’t imagine anybody doing a better job as the seedy, no bullshit unicorn wrangler than he does here. Check it out below, and if you want to find out why it got the axe, here’s O’Brien and Sudeikis talking about it with Meyers.