Steve Martin King Tut SNL

King Tut is performed by Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live. “I’d like to talk seriously, just for a moment,” Steve Martin said on the April 22, 1978, episode of Saturday Night Live. His solemnity was only marginally undercut by the fact that he was draped in stereotypical ancient Egyptian garb, with a multicolored architectural hat atop his head.

Martin’s lecture arrived midway through the show, leaving plenty of time to put together what turned out to be one of the most popular and elaborately silly pieces that had ever been attempted on SNL.

Standing in the darkness, Martin went on to explain how the impossibly commercialized “Treasures of Tutankhamun” museum tour then sweeping the U.S. had taken him aback. He described the souvenir-hawking nature of the traveling exhibit as “a national disgrace,” revealing that he’d been moved to isolate himself in the woods to come up with an appropriate lyrical response to this crass exploitation of the remains of the famed Eighteenth Dynasty boy king.

Martin promised that his musical rebuke partook of “the ancient modalities and melodies,” and kiddingly wished for everyone to learn from his example. Then the lights went up to reveal the Saturday Night Live band, in its entirety, shirtless and kitted out just like Martin on a lavishly decorated set straight out of a Hollywood mummy movie. Martin’s elaborate gag was sprung.

He struck the first of multiple dance moves evoking the two-dimensional poses of ancient hieroglyphs, while those “ancient melodies and modalities” turned out to be a hackneyed and decidedly not-Egyptian “Arabian riff.” Two Cleopatra-styled dancers flanked Martin as the band kicked into a loping, funky rhythm. “King Tut” then unfolded as a deeply anachronistic and inaccurate tale of untold wealth, early death, and eventual worldwide commodification.

The show-stopper came when SNL sax player Lou Marini emerged from the set’s central sarcophagus to blow a killer solo. At the very sight of the mustachioed Marini coated in gold body paint, the crowd erupted, kicking Martin’s silly spectacle into overdrive. Source: Ultimate Classic Rock

The novelty song was recorded with "The Toot Uncommons" (actually The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) and performed live on the April 22, 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live. When Steve Martin hosted SNL in 1978, the cast and musical crew performed the song in a music video, causing it to gain fame.

Nearly 15 years later when Martin hosted in 1992, Chris Farley showed the King Tut costume while recounting another of Martin's skits, Theodoric of York, causing Steve Martin to lead the cast in a mock musical of returning to the roots of "classic SNL". Source: Song Facts