‘I’m beyond excited’: Heidi Gardner of ‘SNL’ takes on big role with KC’s Big Slick
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“Saturday Night Live” cast member Heidi Gardner will join five fellow homegrown celebrities, including Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd, as an official host of the annual Big Slick fundraiser for Children’s Mercy.
“I’ll be joining the boys and I am feeling … over the moon. I’m beyond excited. It’s one of the great honors of my life to be a part of this,” Gardner told The Star. “Though I am speaking, I am speechless. I cannot believe they asked me to be a part of this. It’s incredible.”
She already has one idea for this year’s event in June, and it has to do with the chicken wings she loves at The Peanut bar and grill in Kansas City.
The 14th Big Slick Celebrity Weekend will include a softball game on Friday, June 2, at Kauffman Stadium and the Party & Show on Saturday, June 3, at T-Mobile Center. Presale for the show begins at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 8. Tickets to the general public go on sale March 10.
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Gardner has been a guest at two Big Slick weekends, the first in 2019. She steps into this higher profile role as Big Slick tries to top a record $3.5 million raised last June for the Cancer Center at Children’s Mercy. Gardner watched it happen as a guest.
Sudeikis, Rudd and Rob Riggle founded Big Slick in 2010 as a celebrity poker tournament. Eric Stonestreet and David Koechner joined as official co-hosts in 2014.
The “guys” were slick last June when they proposed that she join them as a host. It happened as confetti flew through the air after the event’s final tally was announced at the T-Mobile Center.
She was on stage with the other celebrities when Stonestreet asked her to “come here with me.”
“I thought he wanted to either introduce me to someone or take a picture with someone,” she said. “And he, like, pulled me over, and Paul and Rob and David were there, and Eric (said) come in here, get in here with us, and we all kind of huddled up. (Sudeikis was still filming “Ted Lasso” in London and couldn’t be there in person.)
“And I was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to do like a Kansas City huddle cheer.’ Not that I know what that is.”
They huddled. Then the Big Slick guys popped the question: Do you want to join us as a host?
And Gardner looked around at all those “hometown heroes” in disbelief until she locked eyes with Rudd.
“And he was nodding his head like, yeah, we want you to join us, and then I just started crying.”
Sudeikis invited her
Until now, the funny men have been the faces of the event. Gardner is keenly aware she is the first female host.
“I do feel that,” she said. “I think back to when the Big Slick started in 2010. I thought it was just the coolest thing in the world, all these hometown heroes who were giving back like that and doing such a fun weekend and bringing these celebrity guests in town.
“And this was before I was doing comedy or anything. But I remember being like, ‘Oh, if they ever have a woman or they wanted a funny woman, that’d be cool if it was me.’”
Many stories about Gardner, who grew up in Kansas City, mention she was voted “Most likely to be a cast member of Saturday Night Live” in high school at Notre Dame de Sion.
She recalls that Sudeikis, a former “Saturday Night Live” cast member himself, invited her to be a Big Slick guest when he returned in April 2019 to reprise his portrayal of Joe Biden.
The celebrity guests typically spend time at Children’s Mercy, meeting the young patients and their families.
Last year, Gardner made a point to talk to doctors, nurses and family members who helped her connect the fun times of the event to the seriousness of the goal.
“Some of these families don’t even live in Kansas City proper. It’s not like they’re close to the hospital,” she said. “They might be coming in three or four or five times a week, every day, for treatments for their children, driving hundreds of miles. And (seeing) the sacrifices that the families, that those working at Children’s Mercy are putting in every single day, I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve got to raise this money.’
“This is beyond a responsibility. This is an absolute must. So I was really feeling that this last summer, even before I was asked to be a host. I found myself asking a lot more questions of the administration at the hospital just to understand more. … There’s so many levels to all of this and just kind of the weight of it all started to hit me.”
She wants to eat hot wings
When the guys asked her to co-host, she felt like everything was “falling in line in a really beautiful way. Because I can feel my heart being pulled to this organization even more now. I know more. I know what I can do to help these families more.
“It’s a huge thing we’re doing and I’m so grateful that we’re doing it.”
She’s already put out feelers, talking up Big Slick among her celebrity friends and inviting them to Kansas City to be guests. She’s “getting some little nibbles,” but she won’t disclose much more than that, not even which “SNL” colleagues she might invite. (Cast mates Bowen Yang and Ego Nwodim are reported besties.)
One thing she hears often about her hometown: “People always say, ah, Kansas City is like this breeding ground for funny people.”
Every year Big Slick brings a slew of stars to Kansas City, dream lineups for fans that have included Selena Gomez, Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, John Oliver and others.
If there are other philanthropic efforts like this out there — where celebrities band together for their hometowns — Gardner hasn’t found them.
“I don’t hear about weekends like this. The Big Slick we know is special,” she said. “When I started telling people about it, they were … that’s really cool. Yeah I’ll do that.”
Part of her new hosting duties will include a performance of some kind at the Big Slick show. Last year’s headliner, Missouri native Sheryl Crow, nearly brought down the roof.
At the suggestion that she do a duet with Crow, newly nominated to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Gardner said she would have to work on her singing, “but I would definitely do that.”
What she wanted to do last year, and hopes to do this year, is participate in the hot wings contest led by “Hot Ones” host Sean Evans.
“I want to eat hot wings and get my mouth burned,” she said. “People love to see people’s mouths on fire and sweaty and having to drink milk.”
She’s never been on Evans’ show, where he famously gets celebrities to eat chicken wings doused in hot sauces. She would do it if asked.
But for Big Slick, “I think we should throw in the wings from The Peanut in Kansas City, just so everyone (knows) these are the best wings in the world.”
In 2019 the Country Club Plaza recognized Gardner’s affection for her hometown by choosing her to turn on the holiday lights on Thanksgiving night. We love her Kansas City pride, Plaza officials said.
Gardner gushes over her fellow Big Slick hosts, calling them “hometown heroes.” Her “Midwest kind of humbleness” prevents her from thinking of herself that way, though people treat her like a star when she comes home.
“People are so incredibly kind to me and show me so much love,” she said. “I was lucky enough to go to the Super Bowl this year and I met so many Kansas Citians and we stopped and took pictures together.”
People thanked her for wearing Chiefs gear at the end of “SNL” shows and for putting Kansas City landmarks into sketches. “We’re proud of you. We see you,” people told her.
Big Slick tickets
The 14th annual Big Slick involves two events. Celebrity guests will participate in the Big Slick Celebrity Classic softball game at Kauffman Stadium on June 2, and the main event, the Big Slick Party & Show, at T-Mobile Center on June 3.
▪ At 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 8, Big Slick insiders and email subscribers (sign up at bigslickkc.org) can buy presale tickets for the T-Mobile Center party.
Prices: $75-$125 for standard lower level and $375 for upgraded seats with Founders Club access including open bar.
Select VIP tickets will also be available, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000. Tickets to a private cocktail party with Big Slick celebrities on June 1, cost $5,000 per person.
▪ At 10 a.m. Friday, March 10, Big Slick Party & Show tickets (and any remaining VIP tickets) go on sale to the general public via bigslickkc.org or T-MobileCenter.com.
Access to the June 2 softball game is available to everyone who buys a Kansas City Royals regular game ticket that night.
For more information and ongoing updates, visit bigslickkc.org or follow Big Slick on Facebook (www.facebook.com/BigSlickKC), Twitter (@BigSlickKC), Instagram (@BigSlickKC) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/BigSlickKC).
