1978 Novelty Hit, Written in 15 Minutes, Debuted on Live TV Before Becoming a Surprise Smash
In the summer of 1978, "King Tut" was all the rage. The song, recorded by Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons, was a satire of the traveling U.S. museum tour of King Tutankhamun's treasures that was in progress at the time.
Released as a single, "King Tut" hit No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Aug 12, 1978, and became the hottest novelty song of the year. A second version of the tune later appeared on Martin's album A Wild and Crazy Guy, which won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 1979.
The song had an interesting start. "King Tut" made its debut on Saturday Night Live on April 22, 1978, months before it was released as a single. The accompanying sketch, featuring frequent SNL guest Martin and his backup band dancing while dressed in Egyptian garb, included Blues Brothers saxophone legend Lou Marini delivering the song's musical solo. At the time, "King Tut" was the most expensive segment the NBC late-night show had ever produced, according to Rhino Records.
Steve Martin wrote ‘King Tut' in the car
The Treasures of Tutankhamun museum exhibit famously toured seven cities between 1976 and 1979. Martin's homage to the event took a lot less time.
In a 2004 op-ed for The New York Times, Martin revealed that he wrote "King Tut" in minutes. "I know that the song ‘King Tut' has become a standard and that many people believe it has been around for three-quarters of a century and was probably written by Cole Porter or Irving Berlin," Martin joked. "But no, I wrote it in my car while driving-and you probably won't believe this-I wrote it in less than 15 minutes."
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In his essay, Martin added that the song broke musical ground in that "if you look at the sheet music, there are asterisks where the notes should be because the song has no tune." He admitted that fact annoyed "so-called legitimate" songwriters.
According to the book Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, after writing the song, Martin approached Saturday Night Live producers with his future hit, but never expected his performance to become a big production. Showrunner Lorne Michaels went all in to help create the elaborate TV moment, and the rest is history.
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This story was originally published May 17, 2026 at 1:12 AM.