The 5-minute Sketch that Spawned a Pop Culture Phenomenon "I've heard it a hundred times but I'd never seen the video, I laughed so hard I was in tears!"
"Now it all makes sense...On the radio I always hear the Christopher Walken intro to "Little Sister" by Queens of the Stone Age but I never knew the joke" (Watch the "Little Sister" video featuring Gene Frenkle!)
"It's hilarious when Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon can't keep a straight face talking to "cock o'the walk" Bruce (Walken) Dickinson. Walken's delivery is priceless.....babies."
On April 8th 2000, Saturday Night Live featured a comedy sketch spoofing the recording of the Blue Öyster Cult hit, "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." The sketch featured guest host Christopher Walken as fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson (not Bruce Dickinson the lead singer of Iron Maiden) and Will Ferrell as fictional cowbell player Gene Frenkle.
It begins with the members of Blue Öyster Cult (and Frenkle) assembled in Sunshine Studios in 1976 preparing for a recording session that produced one of the band's biggest hits, "and fortunately for us, the cameras were rolling."
Music producer (Walken) introduces himself as "thee Bruce Dickinson" and tells the band they have "what appears to be a dynamite sound." The band members are impressed at this compliment because of Bruce Dickinson's supposed high standing in the music industry.
We quickly learn that Dickinson is determined to inject "more cowbell" into the track, regardless of good taste or musical integrity. An intense Walken (Dickinson) encourages cowbell specialist Frenkle (Ferrell) to "really explore the studio space" while hammering away on the cowbell. What ensues is a hilarious parody of how this historic recording session could never have transpired.
"More cowbell" has become a catch-phrase and a pop culture phenomenon. T-shirts featuring the slogan have been sold at Hot Topic, Urban Outfitters, and 80s Tees. Sports teams such as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Pittsburgh Penguins use the sketch as the basis for cowbell-related fan participation. In the 2002 NBA Playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks used a clip of Walken to stir up the crowd and fulfill owner Mark Cuban's pledge to give the Sacramento Kings, whose fans were known for excessive cowbell noise, a taste of their own medicine. As late as March 2007, the catch-phrase is still being used during highlight commentary on ESPN's SportsCenter.
"More cowbell" didn't catch on immediately. It took a few years to finally emerge and reach the mainstream as the ultimate inside joke. And it continues....Where will we experience more cowbell next? Below are some more interesting facts surrounding the whole Cowbell Phenomenon, how the slogan's popularity has grown and various references in pop culture. Some timeline facts are from wired.com and others are part of a Wikipedia article on the SNL sketch that has since been removed.
Even members of Blue Öyster Cult enjoyed the sketch. "We didn't know it was coming," says Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, co-founder and lead guitarist of the group. "We all thought it was phenomenal. We're huge Christopher Walken fans." He adds, "I've probably seen it 20 times and I'm still not tired of it."
Musician/Comedian Stephen Lynch's first album, A Little Bit Special, released in 2000, features a Christopher Walken impersonator (comedian Jay Mohr, who was famous for impersonating Walken while on Saturday Night Live) commenting about Lynch's songs and whether or not they contain enough cowbell.
In August 2003, "Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell" including the Blue Öyster Cult skit, was released on DVD.
In July 2004, "More cowbell" was entered into the Urban Dictionary. Definition: 1) something everything needs more of. 2) a remedy. And for "cowbell" definition: 1) everything lacks it. 2) that of which more is needed.
The Sports Guy, ESPN's Bill Simmons, uses it as a title for his blog.
In August 2004 "Busted Tees" rolled out one of the first More Cowbell T-shirts and it became a best-seller.
Cable entertainment channel E! named its 101 Most Unforgettable 'SNL' Moments in the fall of 2004 and "Cowbell" ranked among the top five.
The iTunes Store contains a "My Groove" playlist named "More Cowbell!". It not only contains Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", but also a variety of other songs on the iTunes Store containing a rather noticeable amount of cowbell, including "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones.
In the 2005 musical "Spamalot", the main Knight Who Says "Ni" quotes a cowbell line.
The South Dakota State University Jackrabbits use "More Cowbell" during their ballgames, including playing the SNL clip and having fans ring cowbells. This occurred when rivals of University of South Dakota thought of them as a hick school so to ridicule them they would ring the bells like farmers, so SDSU now uses this tactic against their opponents.
Walken tells the Orlando Sentinel,"I hear about it everywhere I go."
When the band "Wilco" covered "(Don't Fear) the Reaper" at Madison Square Garden on New Years Eve 2004, they had at least three cowbell players onstage.
BÖC members say people still ask about poor Gene Frenkle, whose image appears at the end of the sketch with the words "In Memoriam Gene Frenkle 1950-2000." Eric Bloom of BÖC (lead singer in the sketch played by Chris Parnell) says, "there was no guy that died. It was all fiction from beginning to end. And Bruce Dickinson is a real guy, but he has nothing to do with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." He works for Sony and he's in charge of the production and remastering of all our old albums. He had nothing to do with the original 1976 "(Don't Fear) The Reaper."
On May 14 2005, on an SNL episode that Will Ferrell hosted, the Gene Frenkle character made an appearance with musical guest Queens of the Stone Age playing their first song of the night, "Little Sister." Frenkle isn't dead...watch the "Little Sister" video here.
At Blue Öyster Cult's live concerts, some fans have been known to bring cowbells from home and play along with the band. Sometimes a roadie will join the group onstage playing the cowbell.
As an April Fool's joke in 2006, GameSpot announced a fake sequel to the video game "Guitar Hero" entitled "Cowbell Hero."
On Dream Theater's Live at Budokan DVD, Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci quote the sketch during a documentary of the band rehearsing. Petrucci tells Portnoy that they "need more cowbell," to which Portnoy replies (in an imitation of Christopher Walken) "I got a fever...and the only prescription... is more cowbell!"
The MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) Guild Wars Factions features a quest entitled "More Cowbell" in which you must search a bed of Blue Oysters for an enchanted cowbell.
In the new expansion pack 'The Burning Crusade' for the MMORPG World of Warcraft, a quest was added with the name "Needs More Cowbell".
One of the fake loading messages in the MMORPG Auto Assault is "Adding More Cowbell".
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays use "More Cowbell" as a rally cry during their ballgames, including playing the SNL clip and having fans ring cowbells. The stadium scoreboard graphics crew have a pre-built graphic that says "More Cowbell!!"
Colorado State University students and football fans borrowed the phrase, "More Cowbell", as a reference to star running
back Kyle Bell and as a way to rally their team.
The Colorado Mammoth, a National Lacrosse League team, show clips from the sketch during breaks in games. Some Mammoth fans bring cowbells to use as noisemakers.
In Crash Tag Team Racing, N.gin says "Don't fear the Reaper, I need more cowbell.I DON'T HAVE A COWBELL!!!"
Hip hop group Jurassic 5 performed a song live in their 2006 tour in which the rappers demand more cowbell, which is promptly added to the backing beat.
In concert, Louisiana rock band Better Than Ezra often play a snippet of "Don't Fear The Reaper" during the bridge section of their song "In The Blood". During many recent concerts, the band brings an audience member onstage to play the important cowbell part.
On the latest Elton John release (The Captain & The Kid, September 2006) at the very end of the song "Just Like Noah's Ark" you can hear Elton and others in the studio make reference to "More Cowbell" and laughing.
Gmail added a cowbell emoticon to their Google Talk application.
In the 2006 movie "Déjà Vu" starring Denzel Washington, Denny (Adam Goldberg) shouted,"I need more cowbell!" when he was trying to make contact with another dimension.
Who played the Blue Öyster Cult band members?
Jimmy Fallon was Albert Bouchard
Chris Kattan was Buck Dharma
Chris Parnell was Eric Bloom
Horatio Sanz was Joe Bouchard (Notice how he smashes into the drum kit on every cut, on purpose?)
Will Ferrell played fictional character Gene Frenkle and Christopher Walken was Bruce Dickinson.