One of Fred Armisen’s most notable characters comes from the sketch “The Californians.” The fictional soap opera sketch features a slew of the “Saturday Night Live” cast members and guest stars doing over-the-top California surfer-type accents while dishing on their characters’ family drama and the best traffic routes navigating the state. As it turns out, Armisen revealed that his character, Stewart, is based on an impression Dana Carvey did of his own son.
The seed was planted when Armisen and Carvey were doing a stand-up show together in San Francisco, and Carvey was telling him about his son. On a visit to the podcast, “Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade” Armisen said, “And he’s just like, ‘It’s hard to be mad at him,’ because, I think he got pulled over or something. He does this impression of his son and he goes, ‘No, but, no, Dad, no, you don’t,’ you know? And, from that, as we were trying to do a California accent, as we’re writing the sketch, that kind of came up” (via Entertainment Weekly).
Armisen even reached out to Carvey before the sketch aired since his impression was the impetus for the sketch. Armisen even clearly stated that the way his character talks is absolutely based on Carvey’s son. He sent Carvey an email with the heads-up. Armisen said, “I was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, we’re gonna do this sketch called ‘The Californians’ and it comes from your impression of your son.’”
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