Chris Kattan had auditioned for SNL at the same time as Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri and fellow Groundlings member Jennifer Coolidge, but unlike Ferrel and Oteri, Kattan was not hired at the start of season 21. In his 2019 autobiography, "Baby Don't Hurt Me", Kattan reveals that all three of them also auditioned for Mad TV (1995) around the same time. Kattan became disillusioned and depressed at having missed out on his dream job of being part of the cast on SNL, but to his surprise he received a phone call from Will Ferrell in early 1996, telling him that Lorne Michaels wanted Chris to join the cast as a featured player for the last 6 shows of the season. During his first show, Kattan was urged to perform one of the characters he had developed at the Groundlings and had done as part of his audition for SNL: the gibberish talking Suel Forrester.