A Saturday Night Live sketch turned movie we were spared from

This weekend will mark the release of MacGruber, the latest in a long line films released for public consumption by the the comedic minds at Saturday Night Live. Few notable exceptions aside (like Wayne’s World, The Blues Brothers) most of the SNL films have been dodgy to say the least. Great comedic actors and writers haven’t succeeded. Mainly because it’s tough to take a 2 minute concept and have it work for 90 minutes.

While we have to wait a bit on MacGruber to pass judgment, it is interesting to find out not every popular SNL skit instantly becomes a movie. In fact, it seems we were actually spared from one in particular that had the biggest “bad idea” written on it this side of It’s Pat.

Yes, we almost got “Da Bears” on the big screen. It turns out there were plans for a movie version of the Chicago superfans, written by Robert Smigel and Bob Odenkirk in the mid-90’s. There was even a complete script written for the show. No! you say? Be sure to attend Chicago’s Just for Laughs comedy festival (June 15th – 19th), you’ll be treated to a table reading of the script. Who’s the liar now?

“Da Bears Movie Dat Wasn’t” will be a live reading — by George Wendt, Joe Mantegna, Robert Smigel, Bob Odenkirk, Richard Roeper (as a narrator) and Mike Ditka (as himself) — of a never-produced screenplay. Da plot? Da Bears are being sold, and beloved Soldier Field is being converted into luxury boxes for the rich.

Here’s da thing: This really was a screenplay, written back in the mid-1990s by Smigel and Odenkirk for Paramount, based on characters from the Saturday Night Live sketch. It was never made. Tickets for the one-night-only reading June 19 at the Park West go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at Ticketmaster.com.

“It’s an expansion of the world of the Super Fans,” Smigel said in an interview Tuesday. “We get to meet their families, their kids, their wives, go to church with them.”

We have to say, we are indeed intrigued by this, we love Smigel and Odenkirk but something about this whole idea makes us believe that Paramount made the right decision and canning this movie. It’s better to not make it and say it would have been a great film rather than make it and prove it wasn’t.

How convenient we came across this clip…

Via [I Watch Stuff]