Some comedy writers go method and do tons of research when they dive into a spoof of a famous movie or artist. Not Tonight Show supervising sketch writers Arthur Meyer and John Haskell, though. When it came time to suit up as Spandau Ballet‘s Kemp brothers for Wednesday night’s hilarious spoof of the new wave legends’ iconic song “True,” these guys just took a runner.
“We just make up the characters for who they were and we did no research,” Meyer, 32, proudly told Billboard on Thursday (May 4), explaining that one of the showrunners brought up a rough idea for a sketch involving a character laughing in time with the sweeping pop ballad’s chorus months ago in a meeting. “I thought it might be better if it was two people because it’s always fun to perform with John, and then when we looked it up we found out that two of the guys in the band are brothers.”
Okay, so they did a little research.
Haskell, 32, said the duo took the kernel of the idea and and looked for a way to make the musical laugh into a sketch that “somehow made sense in some way even though it’s so bizarre.” While both were too young to have experienced the Ballet magic the first time around, Haskell said it was fun getting into character to play a pair of siblings they knew nothing about. “We just went for it with nothing based in reality,” he said of the New Romantic poufy hair, glossy lipstick and pirate-shirt look they adopted.
After claiming he was Gary in the sketch, in fact, Haskell later found out that he was actually Martin. Oops.
No harm, no foul, as Gary Kemp tweeted out his delight at the sketch on Thursday morning, joking that he was a bit upset at how “butch” Haskell and Meyer made them look.
I’m laughing too @jimmyfallon! So butch though! https://t.co/sBrwzXvXzq
— Gary Kemp (@garyjkemp) May 4, 2017
“We just figured we’d pick them because very few people out there watching probably really know what Gary and Martin Kemp sound like because they probably only know them from that song,” Meyer said of the pair’s Shakespearean accents. “After the sketch we Googled them and they’re still pretty active… I think we’re curious after we do a sketch if they’re flattered or they take offense and we weren’t quite sure if they would find it funny or if they take themselves very seriously,” Haskell said. “But from the tweet you can tell they enjoy the absurdity.”
In case you missed it, here’s the sketch and the original song below: