Jim Carrey tried to save Pete Davidson’s first ‘SNL’ sketch when it bombed

If you want to watch, as Pete Davidson puts it, a 20-year-old version of himself “crumble with this idol” on national television, boy, do we have a Saturday Night Live sketch for you.

In the latest episode of Hot Ones, the SNL alum opened up about the time a sketch of his with Jim Carrey “bombed to high heavens” — though Carrey came up with a funny way to save it. The unfortunate memory came about when host Sean Evans asked if Davidson remembered his first-ever SNL sketch and what grade he would give to its execution.

Without skipping a beat, Davidson recalled, “My first real sketch [was for an episode] Jim Carrey was hosting. I was so excited because he’s Jim Carrey, one of the legends, and we wrote this sketch where it’s like a zombie apocalypse.”

The episode in question was part of the show’s 40th season in 2014. It takes place after a zombie apocalypse, when surviving students (played by Kenan Thompson, Beck Bennett, Cecily Strong, and Kyle Mooney) hold up at a high school and encounter a father (Carrey) who refuses to believe his son (Davidson) is a zombie.

“I’m his son, I’m clearly a zombie. He’s not,” Davidson continued, adding, “The sketch bombed to high heavens. And it’s a long one. Like it’s six minutes.”

At this point, Davidson starts mimicking the zombie noises he made in the sketch.

“I’m eating d— and the only thing that made people laugh — there was like one scene, one part where I was supposed to like try to attack Jim and he hits me with a baseball bat and that got a pop,” he rememberd of one of the audience’s rare laughs during the sketch.

Naturally, that meant Carrey was going to keep doing it — unfortunately for Davidson. “Jim is a comic so he knows if that works, so the rest of the sketch he just keeps wailing on me with a NERF bat, and then it started to hurt,” Davidson recalled. “So at one point, as a zombie, I went ‘Argh, no more.’ And, uh, it’s online if you want to watch a 20-year-old crumble with his idol.”

Davidson didn’t specify what grade he’d give the sketch, but you can see it for yourself, above.

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Davidson was first hired as a cast member on the NBC late-night sketch comedy series in 2014 and he remained with the show for eight seasons. He officially announced his exit from the series in 2022.

The comedian can next be seen in the heist action comedy film The Pickup, alongside fellow SNL star Eddie Murphy and Keke Palmer, streaming on Prime Video beginning Aug. 6.

Watch Davidson’s full episode of Hot Ones below.