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- Bowen Yang appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" on Friday.
- Yang, 30, shared how his "Iceberg That Sank The Titanic" sketch was created.
- The sketch went viral and received praise after it aired on "Saturday Night Live" in April.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Bowen Yang revealed how his viral "Iceberg That Sank The Titanic" sketch on "Saturday Night Live" came to be.
Yang, 30, appeared on "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon" to dish about the upcoming season of SNL and one of his most successful sketches to date. In April, the comedian performed as the iceberg that sank the Titanic during a segment on "Weekend Update."
The video amassed nearly three million views in just over a month, and Yang went viral on social media for his unapologetic jokes.
On Friday, the 30-year-old comedian told Fallon that the sketch began with a text exchange between him and SNL's head writer Anna Drezen.
"She texts me in February, 'Hey, maybe for the April 10 show, for the Titanic anniversary, you can play the iceberg who sank the Titanic,'" he said. "And I was like, 'Yeah, cool, maybe, sure,' kind of raised my eyebrow at her over text.'"
Although initially hesitant, Yang asked about the sketch idea a month later.
"But then April rolls around and I text her, 'Hey, were you serious about that iceberg idea?' And she was like, 'I completely forgot about it. Let's do it, why not?" said Yang.
Yang said that neither of them could believe the sketch aired on TV.
"The entire week we did it, we were losing our minds a little bit, because we kept looking at each other and bursting out laughing," he said. "On Saturday, at 7 p.m., as you're supposed to turn in scripts, we were like, 'What are we doing? This will never make it onto TV. Will people get it?'"
In the sketch, Yang's iceberg appeared on the "Weekend Update" to promote a new album but got defensive when asked about the Titanic sinking in April 1912.
"That was a really long time ago. I've done a lot of reflecting to try and move past it," Yang told Colin Jost. "It's one very small part me, but there's so much going on beneath the surface that you can't see."
After getting annoyed by Jost's questions, Yang began to recount the incident from his point of view.
"First of all, you came to where I live, and you hit me! It was midnight. I was chilling. And then I hear this Irish cacophony behind me," Yang said. "And before I turn around and go, like, 'What?' Half my a-- is gone, which was my best feature. And I'm literally injured, but all anybody cares about is that like 40 or 50 people died or whatever."