Father Guido Sarducci appeared on The Smothers Brothers Show in 1975 during George Carlin's news update segment. He reported on a scandal about wine not being aged properly and signed off noting he was going to a 106-year-old cardinal's birthday party and had arranged for the cardinal's mother to jump out of the cake. On his first appearance on
Saturday Night Live, a sketch called "How to Pay for Your Sins" on a 1978 episode hosted by
Richard Dreyfuss, he was on crutches from an injury suffered during a dress rehearsal sketch about hockey players. Most of his appearances on
SNL have been on
Weekend Update, including one where he reported that "The take at the shrines in Italy has gone down", which he suggested correcting by creating "Shrinemobiles" and thus taking the shrines to where the people were, and another where he is sent to
London to try to wake up
Paul McCartney at 4:30 in the morning (11:30 p.m. in New York) by throwing coins, obnoxiously singing
The Beatles and
Wings songs, and finally, throwing a rock at the window—he says it works every time.
Saturday Night Live Sarducci appeared in four
cold opens in the
1979–1980 season (on episodes hosted by
Steve Martin,
Teri Garr,
Elliott Gould, and
Rodney Dangerfield), two commercial parodies ("MX-5 Tampons" on the 1981–1982 Christmas episode hosted by
Bill Murray and "Bocce Ball My Way" on the last episode of the 1985–1986 season hosted by
Anjelica Huston and
Billy Martin), and two monologues on the 1985–86 season (the first hosted by
Madonna in a pretaped sketch showing Madonna's wedding to Sean Penn (played by
Robert Downey, Jr.) and the second on the Christmas episode of the 1985–86 season hosted by Garr as Sarducci's alter ego, Pope Maurice). Sarducci also hosted two
SNL episodes during the 1983–1984 season (when
Dick Ebersol was executive producer) and cameoed during two 1990s episodes, most notably on a
Weekend Update segment where he reports on
Pope John Paul II's missing wallet. Father Guido Sarducci has 31 appearances on
SNL, the most of any of the recurring characters.
Vatican visit In 1981 Novello made newspaper headlines when he visited
Vatican City wearing the Father Guido Sarducci costume to do a photo shoot for
Time magazine. After taking pictures in an area where photography was prohibited, he and his photographer, Paul Solomon, were arrested by the
Papal Swiss Guards and Novello was charged with "impersonating a priest". Although the guards attempted to confiscate the film from the shoot, Solomon managed to hand them the wrong film. The charges were later dropped. In the early 1980s, Novello was featured in advertisements promoting candidates for the priesthood. He listed one advantage of being a priest as getting first pick at the annual parish garage sale.
Other media appearances During the 1980s and 1990s Sarducci appeared on other television shows, including
Fridays,
Late Night with David Letterman,
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,
Married... with Children,
Unhappily Ever After,
Blossom, ''
It's Garry Shandling's Show, the Tales of the City miniseries, and Square Pegs. In 1980, Sarducci appeared in Gilda Live'', a film and an album recording based on
Gilda Radner's successful one-woman show that had been playing on Broadway. In 1983, he appeared in a music video for the Rodney Dangerfield song "Rappin' Rodney", where he gave Rodney his last rites on death row, and helped himself to Rodney's french fries from his last meal. In 1984, he appeared in a
music video for the
Jefferson Starship song "No Way Out". In 1995, he appeared as a priest trying to perform an exorcism in the movie
Casper. The same movie featured a cameo by his fellow
SNL alumnus
Dan Aykroyd as the
Ghostbuster Ray Stantz. In episode 11 of season four of
Archer, “Papal Chase”, Archer goes undercover at the Vatican, dressed exactly like Guido Sarducci.
Albums He appeared on the 2002 album
A Classic Rock Christmas performing the song "Santa's Lament" featuring
Joe Walsh and
Joe Vitale. The character also appeared on the
Handsome Boy Modeling School albums ''
So... How's Your Girl? and White People, telling biographical stories of the life of a professional male model in the latter. Novello also released two comedy albums as Sarducci: Breakfast in Heaven and Live at St. Douglas Convent.''
Additional appearances He also appeared on the
MSNBC show
Countdown with Keith Olbermann on March 19, 2005, discussing
The Da Vinci Code and his DaVinci Code Decoder Ring. In the 2001
Disney animated film
Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Novello uses the voice and speech style of Father Sarducci to portray the character of demolitions expert Vinny Santorini. Sarducci made a guest appearance on the April 30, 2005, broadcast of NPR and Chicago Public Radio's ''
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'' news quiz show, commenting on the ascension of
Pope Benedict XVI. He also gave the prayer of invocation at an April 11, 2007, roast of
UConn Huskies women's basketball coach
Geno Auriemma at the Aqua Turf Club in
Southington, Connecticut sponsored by
Connecticut Public Television. He appeared on
The Colbert Report on June 23, 2010, claiming to have conducted an interview with
Glenn Beck while visiting the
Vatican. Later that year, October 30, 2010, he delivered the
benediction at the Stewart/Colbert
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear from the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He was wearing his classic white clerical collar, a long red-trimmed black coat with cape, zebra vest/jacket and black beret. On May 6, 2025, he appeared on
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to discuss the
upcoming conclave following the
death of Pope Francis, where he claimed that Francis's predecessor Pope Benedict XVI was still alive, would be named the next Pope, and would take the name "Pope Benedict XVI the Second". == See also ==