The Foo Fighters are no stranger to the Saturday Night Live stage, having served as the show’s musical guest nine times. But it’s their 2003 appearance with host Christopher Walken that holds a special spot in the show’s lore, thanks in part to Dave Grohl’s frequent retellings of how he told the host to pronounce the band’s name.
“Christopher Walken was the host … he asked us if the accent was on Foo or Fighters,†Grohl told Radio X’s Chris Moyles. Wanting to play into Walken’s famous dialect, Grohl incorrectly told him that the emphasis was actually on the second word. The resulting pronunciation was a perfectly Walken-ian “Foo Fighters.â€
Twenty years later, with Foo Fighters back on SNL this weekend as musical guest, Walken returned to Studio 8H to once again introduce the band — this time redeeming himself by putting the emphasis on the correct part of the band’s name. “Ladies and gentlemen, Foo Fighters,†he announced, in his second appearance of the night after playing the spirit of Halloween in the cold open. Now we just need Patrick Stewart to introduce Salt-N-Pepa again.