Hans and Franz

Hans and Franz were characters in a recurring sketch called "Pumping Up with Hans & Franz" on the television sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Hans and Franz themselves were played by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon, respectively.

Description

In the sketch, Carvey and Nealon play a pair of muscle-bound Austrian jocks who mimicked/spoofed Arnold Schwarzenegger by using padding for fake muscles, drab gray sweatsuits, weight belts, and Austrian accents. The background of the set includes several life-sized cutouts of Schwarzenegger during his competition years and the sketch's introduction music featured mock Austrian "yodeling".

"Pumping Up" primarily consists of Hans and Franz denigrating others for not being strong and as physically "fit" as they were, and then striking bodybuilder poses to show off their "muscled" bodies, complete with strained facial expressions. The two finally receive their just deserts when Arnold Schwarzenegger himself makes a guest appearance on the sketch (to much applause) and ridicules "his cousins" for being girlie and weak.

A movie was in the works for a short time, entitled Hans and Franz go to Hollywood but was scrapped once producers saw poor box office performances from such SNL sketch-inspired movies as Stuart Saves His Family and It's Pat. In late 2010, on the "Conan" program, Conan O'Brien and Nealon discussed how they were holed up in a Santa Monica hotel room for a month or so in the early nineties with Carvey and Robert Smigel, working on a script for the movie (which was to be a musical).

A short sketch spoofing VH1's Behind the Music specials was filmed for the show's 1999 primetime 25th Anniversary Special, but time constraints prevented it from airing. It went on to appear in a later episode that season. In the sketch, Hans and Franz tell the story of how they were reunited in Hollywood when Franz unsuspectingly has his buttocks "read" by Hans.

Cultural references

This sketch was one of the most popular on SNL, and the characters and their catchphrases entered American pop culture. When Schwarzenegger entered politics, he referred to the sketches himself, using the phrases "girlie men" and "pump you up." He even used the "girlie men" term during the 1988 Presidential election. Accompanying then Vice President George H.W. Bush, he attacked Bush's Democratic opponents by saying to the crowd: “They all look like a bunch of girlie men, right?" He used the phrase again to attack California state legislators in speeches during his election campaign for governor of California.

The two Crawler-transporter vehicles used by NASA are nicknamed "Hans" and "Franz" after the SNL characters.

Two Designers from Germany, Konstantin Landuris and Horst Wittmann, work under the name of "hansandfranz", inspired by the "SNL" namegiving.

In the West Wing season 6 episode The Wake Up Call, President Bartlet refers to the English prime minister"s press conference as "getting all Hans & Franz" about the alleged shooting down of a British airplane by Iran.

Hans and Franz also appeared in the Cranium Command attraction in the Wonders of Life pavilion at Walt Disney World Resort's Epcot theme park.

Hale and Hardy, the accented, musclebound dachshunds in Garfield Gets Real, are likely based on Hans and Franz.

In the 2009 video game Borderlands, the player partakes in a boss fight against a pair of beefy, muscular men named Hanz and Franz, a reference to the SNL duo.

Origins

The first sketch in which the characters Hans and Franz appear occurred during the season premiere of the 13th season.

Catchphrases

• "I am Hans." "Und I am Franz." "Und ve just vant to pump... (clap) ...YOU UP!"
• "Hear me now und believe me later..."
• "Girlie men"
• "Poor little girlie man alone in his girlie house!!"
• "Pummela pummela pummela pummela pummela!"