Unlike most people of my generation, I have to admit I was never much of a fan of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”, even back in its glory days of the late ’70s – early ’80s. So when fellow Goodboy Steve “Killer” Kowalski told me about the legendary “More Cowbell” skit (a spoof of VH1’s “Behind The Music” series with Christopher Walken [pictured] as a big-time record producer named “Bruce Dickinson” at a Blue Oyster Cult recording session for their classic signature song “Don’t Fear [The Reaper]”), I had no clue what he was talking about.

Turns out this is one serious cult classic, and as someone who feels as if he’s at least somewhat knowledgeable about classic rock and the pop culture scene of that time, I’m starting to think maybe I missed the boat somewhere.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a Washington Post story about the skit, which summarizes it as follows:

For those who’ve never seen it, the sketch’s hilarity probably defies a printed description.

…Suffice to say, Will Ferrell, who wrote the skit, plays a band member named Gene Frenkle whose specialty is the cowbell (and whose shirt fails to cover his flopping gut). Walken, ever intense, is the producer who is determined — good taste and common sense notwithstanding — to get more cowbell into the song’s recording. He urges Frenkle to “really explore the studio space” while whaling away on his cowbell — which Ferrell does, in a breathtaking bit of physical comedy.

Despite the obvious irritation of the rest of the band, Walken’s Dickinson persists. “Guess what?” he says between takes. “I got a FE-ver, and the only prescription . . . is more cowbell!”

Walken, an actor who has specialized in portraying the slightly unhinged, has described the six-minute sketch as career-defining. “People . . . I don’t know . . . I hear about it everywhere I go,” he told the Orlando Sentinel in October. “It’s been years, and all anybody brings up is ‘cowbell.’ I guess . . . you never know what’s gonna click.”

The skit is actually pretty inane, yet hilarious at the same time, and Walken’s right when he says you just don’t know what’s going to click and take off when it comes to pop culture. I’m wondering if the idea was to spoof someone like legendary rock producer Phil Spector.

(BTW, since the WaPo link to the actual skit contained in the article no longer works, you can view it here.)