The 20 Year History of Ted Lasso You Need To Know Before Checking Out Jason Sudeikis On SNL
The star of Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis, is returning to Studio 8H to host the world renown sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Sudeikis got his start on SNL back in 2003 and eventually joined the cast three years later in 2006. During his time there, he became known for a variety of characters including The Devil, What Up With that Dancer, DJ Supersoak, and, of course, Joe Biden. While his time on the late night comedy show was memorably amazing, it is his time on Ted Lasso that is getting this alum back on the stage to host the night.
Ted Lasso is a show in a league of its own. It topped the charts, swept at the Emmy awards, and entered the hearts of many. While the show was only set to a three year limited run, viewers and those that work on the hit series have begun cries for an extension. The show has, as of now, only been running for two seasons. However, the history of the humble, hard working football coach character traces back even father.
Coach Beard and Ted Lasso have been working together for a really long time. Well, the actors Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt have been. Back in 2001, the two were living in the Netherlands and performing for an improv comedy group called Boom Chicago. Every night before the show, the two would play the FIFA PlayStation game. In an interview with The Washington Post, Sudeikis explained how this game laid the foundation for the show that has become a sensation, "Brendan could explain some of the nuances of the game and the history of the game and even the relationships with the players, breaking it down metaphorically using the '90s Bulls and things that I already knew and understood...It helped make sense of a game that has a lot of depth and complexity." Their dynamic playing the game backstage closely paralleled what would become Beard and Lasso's dynamic on the show. "That's when the soccer bug hit me," Sudeikis admitted.
According to an article in The Chicago Tribune, the inspiration for one of the characters also came from the pair's time in the Netherlands. The article states, "A sketch from Hunt's Boom Chicago days had him playing Roy Keane, the real-life footballer whose talent and prickly personality are legendary among those who follow the sport." This (as I assume you have already pieced together), was the inspiration for the character Roy Kent.
However, the character Ted Lasso did not become a reality until much later. When Sudeikis left the cast of Saturday Night Live, he did not immediately move away from the world of sketch comedy. He and Brendan Hunt started making sketch-style commercials for NBC sports. These sketches centered on an American football coach that found himself in England coaching football. The coach's name? You guessed it: Ted Lasso.
These successful sketch promos ran from 2013 to 2014. When they ended, Olivia Wilde, Sudeikis's former partner, said, in a moment that so many of us are very grateful for, "You should do it as a show." Thank goodness she said something! What would we do with all of our free time if there was no Ted Lasso to watch?
From that moment, Sudeikis, Hunt, and their friend Joe Kelly began writing the pilot. They started working on the first episode back in 2015. Two years later, Jason Sudeikis managed to bring up the show concept with Bill Lawrence.
The rest is history.
Season one of Ted Lasso premiered on August 14th of 2020. In a way, the creation of this mega-hit took nearly twenty years. You will never know what moments in your life could lead to something great down the line. That's something retrospect is going to have to catch. One day you could be sitting down, playing video games, and maybe those video games will turn you into an Emmy Award winner.
