Saturday Night Live cast member Sarah Sherman bares it all in her first HBO comedy special, “Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh.” The special dropped on December 12, 2025, and it is not for the weak. Sherman, known for her wild sketches on SNL, takes off the straightjacket and shows her true self. She calls this special “the truest expression of myself.”
The comedian uses her stage name Sarah Squirm for this project. The hour-long special is full of body horror, gross-out jokes, and stop-motion animation. It even has a special appearance from cult filmmaker John Waters. Sherman told TheWrap that her day job on SNL is “a lot of drag,” but this special is the real her.
‘I Need to Hear Laughs’: Sherman’s Rowdy Comedy Style
Sherman does not hold back on stage. She yells, growls, and throws her whole body into every joke. The comedian admits she loves a loud room. “I’m a comedian, so I need to hear laughs or else the bottomless black hole in my heart will not be full,” she said.
Her live shows often push people too far. Sherman shared that her friend and opener Jack Bensinger has footage of people walking out of her shows in large numbers. “I’m playing a video of a prolapsed hemorrhoid mouth,” she explained. That is the kind of reaction she expects. She wants shock and awe, not just polite chuckles.
The special includes a segment where Sherman shows footage of her own vocal cords. She went to a doctor because she was afraid she had damaged her voice from all the screaming. The doctor told her she was fine.
John Waters and a Pile of ‘Lovingly Crafted’ Garbage
The special opens with a strange but fitting scene. John Waters, often called the “Pope of Trash,” talks to a pile of goo and body parts. The pile then turns into Sherman through stop-motion animation. Sherman explained that she sent Waters a hand-drawn postcard covered in intestines. She drew a picture of a skeleton in a puddle. Soon after, she got a call from a Baltimore area code.
“The special is exactly who I am,” Sherman said about the weird opening. “It’s just a pile of crap. But it’s really lovingly crafted, just like that junk pile from the beginning.”
Building Body Parts on a Budget
Many of the gross effects in the special came from Sherman’s garage. She made a lot of the videos herself with no money and an iPhone. “The hangnail’s made out of wax, the zit is made out of bubble wrap,” she revealed.
Once she started making money on SNL, she hired her friend Izzi Galindo, a special effects makeup artist. Galindo had worked on the movie “Sick of Myself.” Sherman’s request to him was simple: “Hey, do you want to make a long labia for me?”
The special also includes a PowerPoint-style video where Sherman appears nude. The body parts are prosthetics. She said HBO had to send her an email asking if those were her real genitals. “I was just like, ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but no, guys,’” Sherman laughed. “How crazy do you guys think I actually am?”
From Great Neck to ‘Saturday Night Live’
Sherman grew up on Long Island in Great Neck, right behind a famous steakhouse. She was a good student and a lifeguard. She got the nickname “Squirm” in high school from her comedy friends. “They called me ‘Squirmin’ Sherman’ because I was sort of skinny and gross,” she said.
She joined SNL in 2021. At first, she had trouble getting her sketches on air. Then Colin Jost suggested she come on “Weekend Update” as herself. She wrote in her own loud and confrontational style. That choice worked. Now she is one of the most unique voices on the show.
She no longer reads comments about SNL because there are too many people who love to hate the show. But for her special, she needed to know what people thought. “I talked about things that we can all relate to and understand,” she told TheWrap. “And for some reason, because I’m a woman, people are like, ‘It’s another female comedian talking about her vagina.’ It’s like, ‘So?’”
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A Special That Splits the Audience
The special currently holds a rating of around 5.4 out of 10 on IMDb from over 300 user ratings. Some fans love the raw energy. One review called it a great experience for “a lil freak.” Others say it relies too much on bathroom humor and gross-outs without enough real jokes. One viewer wrote, “I had to turn this off after just a few minutes.” Another said, “If you don’t like gross out humor then go ahead and skip this special.”
Sherman trained for the physical demands of the show. She took lessons from a coach who teaches “famous screamo singing metal guys how to scream without hurting themselves.” She jammed new jokes into her act while touring the same show for years. “There’s such a density that it’s easy to take it for granted,” she said about the fast-paced jokes.
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