No doubt you know that Zach Galifianakis will make his triumphant return to Saturday Night Live this weekend as the show’s host. And no doubt, he’ll be bringing his surreal, if not somewhat disturbing, sense of humor to late-night viewers. But before Saturday, we wanted to treat our readers to a little video ride down Zach Memory Lane.
Below, you will find our 10 favorite Zach Galifianakis moments — in no particular order — caught on video. If you want to add your own, feel free to drop a comment and let us know. For now, please enjoy Zach in all of his many forms. Let’s get to it…
Listen, there is not one episode of Funny Or Die’s Between Two Ferns that isn’t outstanding. But this interaction with Bradley Cooper captures so much of Zach we needed to put it on the list.
A lot of comedy nerds’ first exposure to Zach was from his groundbreaking Comedy Central Presents from 2001. Here’s a wee taste of that.
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| Zach Galifianakis – Marcus the Timid Pimp | ||||
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At a 2006 show at Cat’s Cradle in Zach’s home state of North Carolina, one lucky audience member captured this classic interaction between the comedian and a not-so-lucky audience member named Claudia. Check it out!
Fiona Apple released her third album in 2005; it’s called Extraordinary Machine. She made a video for one of her singles, “Not About Love.” She, of course, was in it. And her guest star was our friend Zach.
In 2006, Zach released his concert film and documentary Live at the Purple Onion. In addition to the DVDs amazingly raw and hilarious live performance, there are tour-diary type entries as well as an interspersed interview conducted by Brian Unger. Unger’s subject? Zach’s “twin brother” Seth Galifianakis.
Before Zach was the huge, unstoppable comedy star he is today, Zach was totally stoppable. Dog Bites Man, the short lived semi-scripted Comedy Central show (premiered in 2006), wherein he played Alan Finger, a producer of a ramshackle local news team, was evidence of that. Still, the show had its moments, especially the moments that included Zach. Below, we get a sense of just who Alan Finger was.
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We’re used to seeing Zach fuck with interview subjects on Between Two Ferns. But in 2007, Zach was on the other side of being fucked with when he appeared on College Humor’s chat show The Michael Showalter Showalter. Of course, in the end it’s two comedy friends just fucking with each other.
In 2002, Zach hosted his own show on VH1 called Late World with Zach. It didn’t last long, as the comic was just ahead of is time (in my opinion). The bit below is a field piece wherein Zach takes his monologue to kindergarten. It just proves what kind of range ZG has. Or, at least it proves he doesn’t mind messing with the minds of children.
For some bizarre reason Absolut vodka, in 2008, decided to allow Zach and his friends Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (of Tim and Eric fame) to produce and star in a short film that would promote their liquor. They were given total creative control; they just had to mention the product. Here’s part of what they came up with.
So, we’ve already established that ZG can hang tough with the likes of Fiona Apple. But can he hold his own in the hip-hop world. In 2009, he proved that he could (kind of) when he appeared in Kanye West’s video for “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.”
