Lindsay Lohan and Jimmy Fallon Each Think the Other’s to Blame for All the Laughing in That 2004 ‘Debbie Downer’ SNL Sketch

The pair reminisced about the hilarious moment in a recent chat on ‘The Tonight Show’

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- Episode 18 -- Air Date 05/01/2004 -- Pictured: (l-r) Jimmy Fallon, , Rachel Dratch as Debbie Downer, Amy Poehler as Michelle, Fred Armisen, Lindsay Lohan, Horatio Sanz as Uncle Frank during the "Debbie Downer" skit on May 1, 2004

2004 ‘Debbie Downer’ SNL Sketch.Credit : Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Rarely in Saturday Night Live history has the cast broken as badly as they did the first time Lindsay Lohan hosted in 2004.

The actress, there to promote her new film Mean Girls, joined Jimmy Fallon, Rachel Dratch, Kenan Thompson, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen and Horatio Sanz in a Debbie Downer sketch called “Disney World.”

Any Debbie Downer sketch — in which Dratch would make increasingly bleak statements in the midst of an otherwise happy moment, to the tune of a sad trombone — always came with some on-camera giggles, but this one started and just couldn’t stop. To date, it has more than 20 million views on YouTube.

Reminiscing about the moment over the weekend on The Tonight Show, Fallon told Lohan, “That’s one of my favorite things I think I’ve ever done.”

“Yeah it was so much fun,” the actress replied.

“I wanna say when we did rehearsal, I cracked up too because it’s Rachel Dratch just going …” Fallon began, when Lohan interrupted him, “You were the one who made everyone else laugh! You were stuffing your face!”

Earlier this year, Fallon spoke to Howard Stern about the sketch, saying “I held it in right until the last second.”

“No,” Stern countered. “You did not. You start laughing almost on the first line [Dratch] delivered. Like you see the absurdity in it and you can’t control yourself. And then Amy Poehler lost it, then Lindsay Lohan lost it, and it was just f—ing perfect.”

Speaking to Fallon, Lohan, 38, admitted she was “so nervous” during the episode. “It was my first time on SNL!”

Actress Lindsay Lohan arrives to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Lindsay Lohan on The Tonight Show.Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty

And as Fallon, 50, noted, “The whole place was shaking,” during the sketch. “The room, the … audience. Everyone was laughing.”

Despite her nerves, Lohan was okay with the big breakdown.

“It sets a good tone though for the show,” she said. “It’s just comfortable after that.”

“It was fun, it was great,” Fallon agreed.

In a history of the character NBC ran in 2023, Dratch said she came up with Debbie on vacation years prior.

“I was on a vacation and there was this communal dining table and someone was like, ‘Oh, where are you from?’ and I said, ‘New York,’ and then they said, ‘Were you there for 9/11?’ And everything just screeched to a grim halt,” Dratch told Salon in 2015. “I didn’t think of it that second, but then a week later it just popped into my head, this character Debbie Downer.”