#The Best & Worst Sketches – /Film

This weekend’s Saturday Night Live likely had to make a dramatic shift when the official news came through that Joe Biden was elected to become the 46th President of the United States of America. That means host Dave Chappelle had a lot of responsibility to react in his monologue as well, especially since four years ago he had to deal with the more somber news of Donald Trump being elected president in November 2016. Not only did Chappelle deliver a powerful, thoughtful, provocative, and hilarious stand-up set to help open the show, but it might have been the longest SNL monologue of all-time. And on top of that, there were some great sketches in this loose, relieved, and energetic episode.

So let’s get down to the best and worst sketches of the Dave Chappelle hosted Saturday Night Live.

The Best

Take Me Back – I’m a sucker for these kinds of sketches. The absurdity of the situation just keeps escalating, and Beck Bennett’s ex-boyfriend character keeps getting worse and worse by the second. Though the eventual turnaround of Ego Nwodim’s character was predictable along with the end of the sketch, the various layers of transgressions were positively hilarious.

Uncle Ben – Honestly, it’s a shame that the image for this sketch spoils the arrival of Count Chocula, because that’s a great reveal. But even greater is how giddy Chappelle is throughout this sketch, making it difficult for him to stop breaking. In fact, I’m not sure if the reference to Pete Davidson’s lips in this sketch was actually written, or if he just ad-libbed that part. Considering Davidson broke too, and spit out his teeth mouthpiece, I’m thinking Chappelle was just having some fun. Besides that, the premise of the sketch is solid, and I’m very curious how they manipulated Dave Chappelle’s voice live to make him sound like Dennis Haysbert on the Allstate commercials.

By the way, did anyone else think it’s weird that the sketch was introduced by Dave Chappelle on the mainstage? Was that really necessary? The premise seems pretty well set up by the sketch itself, so I’m not sure why this introduction was necessary.

Super Mario 35th Anniversary – So, first of all, let me just say that the logistics of this sketch don’t entirely make sense. When have documentary subjects ever seen the interviews that came right before them and been able to react to them? Having said that, The way this unfolds is still hilarious. The continued tragedy of Kyle Mooney’s nuts and the reaction of the rest of the documentary subjects, especially Kenan Thompson, had me cracking up.

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