The Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoon, created by Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier, made its debut on The Dana Carvey Show 19 years ago, but when it was cancelled they began airing on Saturday Night Live. A total of thirteen sketches ran on SNL, from 1996 to 2011.
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For those of you not familiar, The Ambiguously Gay Duo is a parody of the stereotypical comic book superhero duo. It satirizes suggestions that Batman and his sidekick Robin had a secret homosexual relationship. The ongoing joke is that Ace and Gary, voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell,ย fight crime while the villains become distracted trying to figure out if the duo are gay, or not.
In 2011, SNL ran a special live-action version of the sketch, but this time Gary and Ace were played by Jimmy Fallon and Jon Hamm. That is probably the closest we’ll ever come to a live-action film based on the characters. Although, many years before that Smigel and Stephen Colbert wrote a script for a film adaptation and Jim Carrey was interested in starring in it.
In 2003, Steve Carell worked with Jim Carrey on Bruce Almighty and brought up the project to Carrey, and he became intrigued. “Carell told Jim that I had thought about doing a live-action movie,” Smigel recalled. “And Carrey just lit up at the idea.”
“In 2005, Colbert had left The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report was just a gleam in his eye,” Smigel told Entertainment Weekly. “I remember him telling me about it and us joking a little bit about it. He had three or four months before he was even going to start on that, so we wrote this movie together.” When they had finished the script they went back to Carrey, but that is when things went south. “We pitched it to Jim. It took a long time [to hear back],” Smigel said. “But it sort of died on the vine again.”
Smigel still ponders a film based on the skit and he has two people in mind for the leads. “A year ago, I was like, ‘What if I went out now to Channing Tatum and Justin Bieber?’” Smigel said. “I would go to see that.”
Source: Entertainment Weekly
