Thirty years later, Christian Laettner isn’t sure he knew it was coming. In 1994, he was in the NBA, his second season with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Maybe someone had tipped off his agent but he doesn’t think so.
The former Duke star remembers just one day when he saw the ad on ESPN. Chris Farley, then at the height of his “Saturday Night Live” glory, dressed in Laettner’s No. 32 jersey, recreating the touchdown strike against Kentucky, a signature moment in NCAA Tournament history.
“All I know is that it suddenly came out and it was hilarious and awesome,” Laettner said. The Athlete.
Farley did three spots that aired on ESPN, all promoting college basketball, all remembered for the physical comedy and antics that made Farley so beloved and famous.
At one point, Farley was Michigan’s Rumeal Robinson, standing at the foul line, needing to sink two free throws to win the 1989 national championship. “And it makes it look…” Farley says, before shooting and lost, not once, not twice but six times, shouting in Farley’s famous frustration (“GET IN!”) after each brick.
In another, it’s North Carolina’s Michael Jordan in the 1982 title game, but instead of sinking the game-winning jumper from the wing, Farley decides to take a step-back 3 (he was ahead of his time on this one), pointing right in the end that college basketball didn’t have a 3-point line at the time.
But it’s Laettner’s ad that’s so fantastic, so funny, so Farley.
“Okay, I’m Christian Laettner,” begins the comedian, wearing a skin-tight Duke outfit. “1992. Duke-Kentucky. Kentucky leads by one, Christian has the ball. Two seconds left.”
Farley turns and faces five Kentucky defenders, life-size cutouts of plywood. He dribbles and shoots a turnaround jumper, just like Laettner did that memorable afternoon in Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals.
No.
“From the glass!”
“He gets his own rebound!”
Miss.
“Loose ball!”
Farley dives and hits over a Kentucky interception. Finally, he makes a layup and raises his arms in celebration.
“The Duke wins! Game of the century,” Farley exclaims. “And this is as it happened! … Well, almost.”
In fact, it did.
In 1993, Glenn Cole joined Wieden+Kennedy, an ambitious advertising agency based in Portland, Ore. Although a global company today, Wieden+Kennedy then devoted much of its resources to one client, Nike. It was known for “Bo Knows” and for Mars Blackmon telling Jordan, “Money, it’s got to be the shoes.”
A copywriter, Cole, 24, was the youngest at the company. A former sprinter at the University of Oregon, he loved the creativity and storytelling advertising provided, especially at Wieden+Kennedy. He described himself in this setting as “an idiot who was a boarder half a minute ago.” But his superiors thought enough of him to assign him an ESPN campaign that came with a simple assignment.
Promoting college basketball.
“I got the keys to this kind of cool car. Nobody’s looking at it,” Cole said, referring to all the attention the company has given Nike. “I have a basketball campaign on ESPN. I watch “Saturday Night Live” a lot. And I was obsessed with Chris Farley.”
Cole had an idea. A common basketball moment — playing solo on a playground. Draw game. The clock goes off. 3… 2… 1.
However, the shot rarely falls. The countdown is reset. No game-winning heroics, just a pitch.
“And so I thought it would be funny to screw with that trope,” Cole said. “And then I said, ‘Oh my God, Chris would be the perfect person to do this.’
Approaching 30, Farley was a rising star. The New York Daily News had called him the performer of SNL’s final season, one who had brought the same kind of “volcanic, magnetic energy” to Eddie Murphy and John Belushi before him. His talent and comedy was beginning to transfer to the big screen. “Tommy Boy,” starring Farley and David Spade, will open in 1995.
Even better in this case: Farley was a sports fan. Growing up in Madison, Wis., he had played hockey and soccer. At Marquette, he had played club rugby. On SNL, he played pickup hoops with buddies on the 76th Street Basketball Court at Riverside Park.
“Chris was a talented comedian,” said Doug Robinson, Farley’s agent. “And a lot of people don’t know that Chris was really a tremendous athlete. He moved very well. He loved sports. So if Chris was going to do physical comedy, he would commit to whatever he did.”
Cole flew to Los Angeles to pitch the concept to Farley. ESPN asked if he had a backup plan in case Farley refused. “Of course,” Cole said.
Actually, he didn’t.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is a long shot,'” said Beth Barrett, a producer on the campaign. “It was back in the day when it wasn’t as common as it is now for celebrities and celebrity athletes and comedians and musicians to sell out on commercials. It was almost a bad thing to be in an ad.”
Cole met Farley in Farley’s hotel suite. Farley wore a tweed suit, sloppy in design. Cole laid out his vision and Farley understood immediately. The comedian got up from the couch and started playing Laettner’s spot. He knocked over a vase, which made Cole immediately realize, “Oh, I’ve got to get something for you to knock over.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun,” Cole recalled Farley saying. “Let’s do it.”
The spots were shot days later in a Los Angeles studio. Today, a celebrity would probably show up with a group. But then, Larry Frey, the campaign’s creative director, remembers Farley’s manager arriving early and Farley getting up later on his own. The cane fell around lunchtime.
“He was literally like a 10-year-old kid, and they just called him a break,” Frey said. “Full of energy. Like, ‘Hi Guys! I’ll probably screw it up today.“Super self-deprecating. Super enthusiastic. And just wings it.”
They shot the Michigan and North Carolina spots first, mostly because Cole knew what Farley had planned for Laettner and didn’t want to risk hurting his star.
(In addition to the commercials, Farley also shot a series of promos that never aired. In the one below, Farley holds two stuffed animals and pantomimes a discussion about an upcoming rivalry game. Naturally, the mascots soon attack each other and then Farley, and the promo ends with a trademark Farley outburst.)
For Laettner’s spot, Cole gave simple instructions.
“Look, I’m going to put you at the 3-point line,” he recalled telling Farley. “We will begin this project the way everyone remembers it in our collective memory. And then look, man, try to make the shot, but if you don’t, just hurry up and try to finish the game and surprise me.”
Farley, unleashed.
Farley at his best.
He outplayed former Kentucky standouts Deron Feldhouse, John Pelfrey and Travis Ford by knocking them to the floor.
“A tornado,” Barrett said.
Good ideas don’t always translate. Cole knew immediately that this was what he was doing.
“Every single one of them, right after the first shot of each position — all three of them — I was like, ‘Oh, f—, this is going to be incredible,'” he said.
In “The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts,” writers Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby describe this period as the highlight of Farley’s life.
The comedian had battled drug and alcohol addiction, but after a trip to a rehab facility in Alabama, he was trying to stay clean. Farley was confident and self-assured, the authors wrote, but ultimately it was a losing battle. In 1997, Farley died of an overdose at the age of 33.
When Cole and Barrett look back on that day in Los Angeles, the experience stands out as much as the finished product. Farley had appeared as usual on camera. (After each take, he would ask, “Was that funny?”) But he was also kind and engaged throughout the eight hours he was there.
“We’d go hang out in the green room between sets and he’d ask questions and be interested in other people,” Barrett said. “And just (be) kind of silly. It was just one of those experiences that were pretty rare in advertising where you really knew someone by the end of the day. It was very wonderful.”
Farley and Cole had connected so well, riffing back and forth, exchanging ideas, Farley had asked him if he’d be interested in writing for him on SNL. Cole panicked, thinking:What if I can’t collect awesome stuff every week?” It was an incredible offer, but Cole loved what he did. He refused.
“This was my third project in advertising that I can remember, but it was the first one where I felt like I was working with someone to make something better than what I or they could have done independently,” said Cole, who is now co-founder and president at 72andSunny, a global advertising agency.
A year or two after the ads ran, Laettner walked down a jetway, ready to board a plane. He doesn’t remember which airport or where he was going, but as soon as he boarded he spotted a familiar face sitting in the first row. It was Farley.
Like most celebrities, Farley was looking down, trying not to be noticed, but he made eye contact with Laettner. Farley stood and the basketball star and comedian hugged and laughed.
“Great ad,” Laettner told him.
Chris Farley and Glenn Cole, behind the scenes of a college basketball commercial. (courtesy of Glenn Cole)
(Top illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athlete; photos and video courtesy of Glenn Cole)
