Bob Odenkirk Saturday Night Live: What Most People Get Wrong

Before he was Saul Goodman, and long before he was an unlikely action hero in Nobody, Bob Odenkirk was a guy in a room at 30 Rockefeller Plaza trying to convince Mike Myers that a sketch was funny. Most people look at his resume and see the four years he spent at Bob Odenkirk Saturday Night Live as a golden ticket. In reality, it was kind of a nightmare for him.

He was 25. He was cocky. Honestly, he was—in his own words—a bit of a "prick."

We often think of the late '80s and early '90s as a high-water mark for the show. You had Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and Chris Farley. But for a writer like Odenkirk, it was a pressure cooker that almost broke him. He wasn’t just a background player; he was the architect of some of the most iconic moments in the show's history, even if his name didn’t appear in the opening credits.

The Motivational Speaker That Almost Wasn't

The biggest misconception about Bob Odenkirk Saturday Night Live tenure is that he was just a "writer."

Take Matt Foley. You know the guy—the one who lives in a van down by the river. That wasn’t a spontaneous creation in the SNL writers' room. Odenkirk actually wrote that sketch years earlier while he and Chris Farley were at Second City in Chicago. He’s gone on record saying it was the most fun he ever had in show business.

He played the straight-faced father in the original stage version.

When they got to SNL, the sketch became a behemoth. But Odenkirk felt a weird sense of loss about it. He’s mentioned that once a character like that becomes a "recurring" bit on a show like SNL, it loses its soul. It becomes a formula. He hated formulas.

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Sketches That Died on the Vine

Odenkirk had a specific, weird sensibility that didn’t always mesh with Lorne Michaels’ vision. He once wrote a sketch for Jon Lovitz about a hot dog vendor training a new guy. The joke was simple: the vendor (Lovitz) insisted that putting mustard on a bun was an incredibly complex, high-stakes art form.

It killed at the table read. Everyone laughed.

It never made it to air.

He still talks about that one. In a 2025 interview, he mentioned that Lovitz still brings it up when they see each other. It’s a classic example of the "one that got away"—a piece of comedy that was too "Abbott and Costello" for a show that was increasingly leaning into catchphrases and commercial parodies.

Why He Was "Existentially Dangerous"

Working at SNL in the late '80s wasn't exactly a support group.

Odenkirk has been incredibly blunt about the atmosphere. He called it "existentially dangerous." Why? Because everyone there was convinced they were about to be the next Bill Murray. The egos were massive. He’s admitted he didn't handle it well because he was too young and too insecure.

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He’s even apologized publicly to people like Adam Sandler for being such a "stuck-up" guy back then. He was the "alt-comedy" guy before alt-comedy was a thing. He wanted the sketches to be smarter, weirder, and less reliant on the same old tropes.

• The Bad Idea Jeans: One of the few times he actually got significant screen time.
• The Gap Girls: He helped shape the vibe of the "younger" cast.
• Manson Lassie: This actually happened on The Ben Stiller Show right after he left SNL, but the seeds were planted in the 30 Rock hallways.

He felt like he was running out of ideas by Christmas every year. 11 shows in, and your brain is just mush. It’s a grind that either makes you or breaks you. For Bob, it did a little of both.

The Steven Seagal Incident

If you want to understand why Odenkirk eventually had to leave, look no further than the Steven Seagal episode.

Seagal is widely considered the worst host in the history of the show. Odenkirk was right there in the middle of it. He’s told stories about Seagal refusing to do a "Hans and Franz" sketch because he couldn't handle the idea of "losing" a fight, even a fake one.

Odenkirk was the guy trying to make the comedy work with a host who didn't understand what a joke was. It was a wake-up call. He realized he wanted to be the person in front of the camera, making the decisions, not the person in the back of the room trying to soothe a fragile ego.

The Pivot to Mr. Show

By 1991, Odenkirk was done. He left the show not with a bang, but with a sense of relief.

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He moved to LA and joined The Ben Stiller Show, where he won an Emmy. Then came Mr. Show with Bob and David. That’s where he finally found his voice. It was the "anti-SNL." No recurring characters just for the sake of selling T-shirts. No celebrity hosts. Just pure, interconnected, absurd sketches.

It’s funny to think about now, but without the frustration of Bob Odenkirk Saturday Night Live years, we probably never get Mr. Show. We definitely don't get the version of Bob Odenkirk that had the grit to play Saul Goodman.

The show taught him how to write under pressure. It taught him what not to do.

What You Can Learn From the Odenkirk Era

If you're a creative, Odenkirk’s stint at SNL is basically a masterclass in "the messy middle."

1. Don't mistake a "dream job" for your final destination. For Odenkirk, SNL was a stepping stone, even though it felt like the center of the universe at the time.
2. Own your mistakes. He’s spent the last decade being incredibly open about his bad attitude during those years. That self-awareness is why people love working with him now.
3. Hold onto your "Hot Dog Vendor." Just because a gatekeeper (like Lorne Michaels) doesn't "get" your best idea doesn't mean it isn't good.

Bob Odenkirk eventually returned to host in a way, but his legacy at the show remains that of the "brilliant, difficult writer." He was the guy who saw where comedy was going before the show did.

To really understand his impact, you have to look past the Breaking Bad fame. Look at the scripts. Look at the way Chris Farley moved in that Matt Foley sketch. That’s the Odenkirk touch. It’s loud, it’s physical, and it’s deeply, deeply weird.

Next Steps for Comedy Nerds:
If you want to see the DNA of Odenkirk's writing, track down the "Happy Happy Good Show" recordings or the early Ben Stiller Show sketches. You'll see the exact moment he stopped trying to fit the SNL mold and started building his own. You can also read his memoir, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, which gives the most unfiltered look at those 30 Rock years.