In the years since Shrek Forever After, our most recent check-in with the friendly Mike Myers-voiced ogre, DreamWorks’ animated franchise has matured from a massively successful creative property into something vaster and stranger. Gradually but undeniably, the Shrek films have turned into a Whole Big Weird Internet Thing, with various denizens of the World Wide Web creating disturbing fan-art and cracking absurdist jokes about the smart-alecky series of animated films. In certain online circles, even uttering the words “Some-BODY once told me” is enough to prompt a barrage of surreal humor and warped image macros. And now that Shrek lives on as a sense-stymieing parody of its former self, what better time to revive the franchise?
Before Mike Myers became synonymous with the green ogre named Shrek, his fellow SNL castmate Chris Farley was actually cast in the role and had recorded about 80-90% of his dialogue. Then, in 1997, Farley tragically died of a drug overdose, DreamWorks was forced to recast the role and, in doing so, radically rethink their version of Shrek. Today, the first footage of Farley as Shrek has popped up online and shows a very different character than the one we have come to know and love.