In the “SNL” sketch, Val Kilmer reprised his role as Iceman on a Delta flight, where he kept spouting off lines from the movie like, “Listen to me, you’re out of line! Your ego’s writing checks your body can’t cash and that makes you dangerous!” and claiming that there were “bogeys” inbound. It’s not officially online, but TikTok is great at coming through with sketches that aren’t available through official channels.
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As the sketch with cast members Chris Parnell, Will Ferrell, and Ana Gasteyer unfolded, it turns out Tom Cruise was in Studio 8H watching from backstage. Schur recalled being nearby while Cruise was just “standing eight feet away watching this sketch and just enjoying it a great deal.”
It was at that point that “SNL” producer Marci Klein came up to Schur, as he recalled, “She came over to me while the sketch was airing and was like, ‘Tom Cruise is here, should we get him to like walk on?’ I was like, ‘Yes of course, we should.’ And she was like, ‘What should he do?'”
Schur quickly came up with a great way to close the sketch, with Cruise coming into the cockpit and saying, “Hey Iceman, let’s get you out of here, bud.'” And Klein walked over to Cruise, who nodded while she was speaking to him, and he seemed prime to make it happen.
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Sadly, this was all happening just as the sketch was coming to a close, and they missed their window to get Cruise in the right place at the right time. Schur remembered, “The sketch ended and the applause was cued and Val got whisked away to run to change. We missed it by like eight seconds. We missed a Tom Cruise walk-on into the sketch, which would have just, 30 Rock would have crumbled to the ground.”
That truly would have been an amazing surprise, one that might have rivaled the unexpected appearance by Barbara Streisand during a “Coffee Talk” sketch with Mike Myers, Madonna, and Roseanne. While it’s a shame we didn’t get to see that, we’re just happy Cruise and Kilmer ended up reuniting in such a beautiful way for “Top Gun: Maverick.”
