Bruce Springsteen is duly celebrated for his 60-year music career, but that’s just one of the things his fans know best about him — in addition to his deep, abiding love for New Jersey, and his penchant for spinning long, detailed stories and speeches between songs when performing live. During Ben Stiller’s October 8, 2011 Saturday Night Live episode, he parodied The Boss’s onstage storytelling in his “Bruce Springsteen DVD Set” sketch.
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“You’ve loved his music for years. You’ve bought the reissues and you’ve bought the live bootlegs — but if you’re a true Bruce fan, there’s one thing you’re missing to make your collection complete,” an announcer (SNL writer and producer Steve Higgins) says at the top of the sketch. Enter Stiller’s Springsteen backed by drummer Max Weinberg (then-writer Mike O’Brien) and Steven “Lil Stevie” Van Zandt (Fred Armisen), wrapping up one of his famous yarns.
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“…And then my daddy said to me, he said ‘son, you better be going to get a haircut. And I said ‘sorry Pops, but tonight I’m goin’ drag racing…by the old abandoned Ferris wheel,” Springsteen says, before grunting out a song countdown.
Ben Stiller’s Bruce Springsteen SNL sketch poked fun at the singer’s between-song stories
The examples that follow are like catnip to the real fans, who know stories like this from so many collected bootlegs: “Motorcycle Crash,” “Vietnam Draft Board,” “Lil Stevie (First Meeting),” and “This One Time We All Got Bandannas.” Important lore!
Ben Stiller and Fred Armisen appear on Saturday Night Live Season 37 Episode 3.
Photo: Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal
“My friends and I worked at a drive-in movie theater with no speakers,” Stiller’s Springsteen tells an audience, after describing another summer job stacking rust at a dirt factory. “We got paid 20 cents an hour to lean in peoples’ windows and tell ’em what was happening,” he added before kicking into another count-off.
Watch “Bruce Springsteen DVD Set” from Season 37, Episode 3 above, and stream every episode of Saturday Night Live on Peacock anytime.
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