Bob Odenkirk Actually Wrote the Motivational Speaker Matt Foley Sketch on SNL Made Famous by Chris Farley

You know the famous Chris Farley sketch on Saturday Night Live where he plays motivational speaker Matt Foley, who lives in a van down by the river?! Of course you do. It’s one of the characters synonymous with both Farley and Saturday Night Live, and apparently it should also be associated with Bob Odenkirk.

Odenkirk is best known for his roles in the AMC series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, as well as his brand new show Lucky Hank, and several other films and series, but before we knew him so well as an actor, he was a writer on Late Night With Conan O’Brien as well as Saturday Night Live, writing for the latter on 132 episodes over eight years.

He is responsible for many hilarious sketches, and during his recent appearance on Hot Ones (via CB), Odenkirk told this story:

"I love Chris, and then the motivational speaker sketch that I wrote for him, the one that did so well.... We had done an improvisation, and we were all playing teachers of a school, and it was like a 'Don't Do Drugs' rally, and we were talking to the students, and he did his coach character. And it was Matt Foley. He might've even used the name Matt Foley. It didn't have the story, 'van down the river,' it wasn't a motivational speaker, but, you know, he was going, [imitates Matt Foley]. It stuck in my head, as it would anyone, and I went home that night and I wrote that sketch, and I've written hundreds of sketches in my life, and I wrote it exactly the way it's done, although Robert Smigel added the breaking table."

He went on to say:

"My daughter once asked me, 'What was the most fun you've had in showbiz?' and I said, I did this sketch with Chris Farley. I played the dad in the sketch and we did it seven times a week at Second City. Every time I did that was the most fun I had in show business."

That’s an awesome memory, and a very cool link from Odenkirk to Farley. What’s your favorite Chris Farley character from SNL?