Will Forte Explains How He & Kristen Wiig Came Up with SNL's Jackie & Clancy Songs
The alum told Amy Poehler all about toddlers, Model-T cars, spaceships, and jars of beer.
Get your toddler, your Model-T car, your spaceship and your jar of beer, because it's time to revisit a Will Forte classic.
Forte was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 2002 to 2010, and became known for playing a lot of weird guys who sing weird little songs. In a particularly absurd recurring sketch, Forte played Clancy T. Bachleratt, a country legend who performs alongside partner Jackie Snad (Kristen Wiig). The duo appeared in 2008 and 2009, ad returned when Forte hosted in 2022. And they never ceased to amaze with their very specific lyrics.
On the June 17, 2025 episode of the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast, Forte revisited the character with Amy Poehler, who dared to suggest the songs were about a "glass of beer."
"Well, first of all, it's 'jar of beer,'" Forte said. "It's a glass jar."
Forte went on to explain that the origins of Clancy and Jackie arose from a different sketch entirely.
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The Clancy and Jackie sketches were written by Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, and John Solomon
"Me and Wiig and John Solomon wrote a Thanksgiving sketch that was just people singing," he continued. "I forget the tune, but it was like, 'Guess who's coming to Thanksgiving dinner this year,' and then it was just a bunch of weird names, like Pesamelia Giltwijna Frooj Freem, Betsy Peoplepoof, and all these weird things. It did not make it."
The sketch was "fun," Forte explained, and made it to dress rehearsal, but didn't make it to the live show.
"The next time we went in, we figured out the thing of like, oh, we'll sing about toddlers, Model-T cars," he recalled. "It was gonna be a bunch of different songs, and then we picked those things and we're like, what if every single one has those things? And then it became about that."
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At first, Clancy and Jackie's songs were based on existing tunes — such as "Highway to the Toddler Zone," for example.
"It was probably 10 different songs and would have been the most expensive sketch of all time, so they said 'Get out of our face with that,'" he explained. "So we just wrote original songs and that was kind of how we did it."
"That was one of the most fun to ever get to do," Forte said, and Wiig remembered that their performances at the table reads were "really loud," but "incredible."
Forte ended his time on the podcast by serenading Poehler with one of the songs, much to her delight. He got the lyrics slightly wrong and admitted he was "butchering it," so these are the correct lyrics to "Spaceship Camp," from "Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad Sing Easter Songs," which you can also watch below.
Hey Jackie can I get a ride to spaceship camp
Does a toddler boil lobsters in a frying pan?
I know the answer to that question is yes, yes yes
Then hop in my Model-T car
Hey look, a beer jar!
Beer jar in a Model-T car
Spaceship camp!
Jonah Hill starred in the original sketch, "Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad Sing Songs About Spaceships, Toddlers, Model T. Cars & Jars of Beer"
Jonah Hill hosted the Season 33 episode where Clancy and Jackie made their debut, and he opened the sketch as "legendary producer Tim Jacklepappy." He explained that the two luminaries Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad, who each separately loved to sing about toddlers, spaceships, Model-T cars, and jars of beer, had finally combined forces to sing about those things together. And why do they sing about those things?
"Because they love America," Jacklepappy said, while Hill tried desperately not to laugh. "And what's more American than old cars, kids, beer, and space vehicles?"
In November 2024, Hill sent a voice note to The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast in which he was supposed to talk about that week's Digital Short, "Andy's Dad," but also recalled his love of Clancy and Jackie.
"I am proud to say that every time I've hosted, all five times, I can sniff out the weirdo s--t that the writers love, that they can never get on," he said. "I'm maybe one of the people that they knew would fight to get the weirdo s--t on. This was one of them were Lorne did not want it on the show, and I was like, 'Please, please, please, I know I'm just a kid and I'm hosting but this is so awesome. I'm begging you, can we put this on?'"
Hill said Lorne Michaels "knew it was funny, but knew it was pretty gnarly," and let it air anyway.
"Everyone always was really nice to me about that for many years," Hill remembered. "Will Forte and John Solomon were those kind of writers that were like everybody's favorite writers, but sometimes just so insane that they couldn't get it on...I couldn't keep it together," he said, adding that "Will Forte is so funny."
Clancy and Jackie returned in Season 34 when April 4, 2009 Host Seth Rogen played a producer named Kirby Spabblespoov. The final installment came when Forte returned as Host on January 22, 2022. He was joined by Wiig in a cameo, with Kenan Thompson played a guy named Jevner Keeblerelv.
So, why not spend your Fourth of July channeling Clancy and Jackie? After all, there's nothing more American than toddlers, Model-T cars, spaceships, and jars of beer.
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