Macgruber

Richard Dean Anderson (who played the title role in the MacGyver series) has also appeared on MacGruber. The shorts are written by Will Forte, John Solomon, and Jorma Taccone. Taccone is responsible for creating the character and directed most of the spots with the exception of the Jonah Hill and Shia LeBeouf episodes, which were both directed by John Solomon.

The sketch revolves around MacGruber always becoming consumed with some sort of personal issue, to the detriment of himself and his assistants.


Premise
The skit sets MacGruber, Vicky, and another assistant (typically played by the current SNL host) in a life or death situation. The setting is always the sort that stars of action shows find themselves in (an abandoned mine, a warehouse, and so forth), and they always find themselves trapped in the control room (no matter the setting, there is always a control room.) They need to disarm a bomb which is about to go off, and Vicky will call out that there are twenty seconds left, ten seconds, and so forth.MacGruber calls for his assistants to pass him ordinary objects, like rubber bands or bubble gum wrappers (a parody of how MacGyver would typically devise some way of getting out of a jam with typical household objects). Unfortunately, MacGruber is always dealing with some sort of personal issue, and always becomes distracted by this issue, ignoring Vicky's notices about how much time is left, and the bomb always ends up going off.
Somehow, all three always seem to survive each explosion, because in the second part, they all appear, seeming none the worse for wear, but MacGruber is still focused on the issue that distracted him in the first sketch, to an even greater degree; again, he allows the bomb to go off.

The sketch revolves around MacGruber becoming more and more consumed, obsessed or overwhelmed as each new part of the sketch appears, until, by the third sketch, he can barely function. (His assistants have often lost confidence in him or are quitting by the third sketch.) A few of the issues that he has dealt with include his fear of aging (on one mission, he brought along a young trophy girlfriend and pretended his assistants were his mom and dad, and then he foolishly got plastic surgery in South America from doctors with questionable qualifications who botched his surgery), alcoholism, and losing all his money in the stock market.
Featuring MacGyver
During the January 31, 2009, episode of Saturday Night Live, Richard Dean Anderson appeared as MacGyver in a series of Pepsi commercials.Although these aired during the commercial breaks, they were presented as MacGruber sketches and later aired with the SNL material on Hulu. In the commercials, MacGyver complains about the poor job MacGruber is doing and accuses him of being a sellout.
The second of the three Pepsi "MacGruber" commercials re-aired as a TV commercial during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009, where MacGruber, locked with MacGyver in the control room of an "illegal supply ship", has 15 seconds to disarm a bomb, but becomes distracted by the temptation of a drink of Pepsi.

In the 3rd skit, the entire theme song lyrics have been replaced by the word "Pepsi" repeated over and over again. In the skit, MacGruber's entire dialogue also consists of the single word "Pepsi".
On the March 7, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live (host: Dwayne Johnson; musical guest Ray LaMontagne), it was revealed that MacGyver is actually MacGruber's long-lost father (making MacGruber's full name "MacGruber MacGyver") who left his mother (Abby Elliot) for a stripper when he was a baby.
Characters
Current characters
Former characters
Feature film
On June 1, 2009, Will Forte confirmed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that there will be a MacGruber movie, written by Forte, Taccone and Solomon.The production crew is seen testing guns in a warehouse.
Professional wrestlers M.V.P. Bill Hader talked to NY Mag about the film and he said that he "read the script and it sounds like a hard-R comedy and it blew his mind".