An Occasional Saturday Night Live Sketch With Intentional Breaking Isn’t a Big Deal

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https://popculturereferences.com/an-...nt-a-big-deal/

Brian explains why it's really not a big deal to do an occasional Saturday Night Live sketch centered on making people break.



Today, I explain why it’s really not a big deal to do an occasional Saturday Night Live sketch centered on making people break.

Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.

Obviously, one of the most notable things on a live television show such as Saturday Night Live is when one of the performers “breaks” character by laughing. It doesn’t happen that often, so when it DOES happen, it gets a lot of attention. Some of the most famous moments in Saturday Night Live history involve people breaking, like the first “Debbie Downer” sketch, the “More Cowbell” sketch, and many more memorable instances where the performers have started laughing during the sketch.

Ryan Gosling is famous for breaking a LOT as a host. Two very popular sketches from the last decade have involved Gosling breaking, with the “Alien Abduction” sketch being the most notable, and the recent “Beavis and Butthead” sketch also being notable (that one was more about cast member Heidi Gardner breaking, as she wasn’t quite prepared for the full experience of Gosling and cast member Mikey Day made up to look like Beavis and Butthead).

So in this week’s episode, the show decided to do a sketch that was BASED on making Gosling and cast member, Ashley Padilla, break by making them read notes (while playing a teacher and a principal) that they were seeing for the first time. This was famously what John Mulaney would do during Bill Hader’s famous Stefon sketches on Weekend Update.

Mulaney would write new material that Hader hadn’t seen before, and it would constantly make Hader break. One of the most famous examples was one where you can see Hader break AHEAD of the bit, just as his eyes are reading ahead on the cue card and seeing the line he was about to read (I believe it was “Have you heard of Blacula, the Black Dracula?” “Yes.” “Well, they have a Jewish Dracula.” “Oh. What’s HIS name?” “Sidney Applebaum.” Hader could see “Sidney Applebaum” coming AS he’s reading the setup for the joke, so he breaks during the setup).

So here, the gag was Padilla and Gosling breaking as they read jokes they hadn’t seen before.

And I get it, I know some people thinking breaking is “unprofessional,” and I agree that I wouldn’t want them to do gags based on breaking REPEATEDLY, but I don’t think the occasional sketch based around making the actors break is really that big of a deal.

REPEATEDLY doing it is kind of hacky, but I think a little bit is fine. And they HAD to put the disclaimer there, or else people would be WAY too confused as to why Padilla and Gosling were breaking so badly.

This is a show in its 51st season. You can mix up the humor a little bit at times. It’s all good.

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Getting Ashley Padilla to Break Might be a New Saturday Night Live Tradition

Brian looks at how making Ashley Padilla break might be a new Saturday Night Live tradition.



Today, we look at how making Ashley Padilla break might be a new Saturday Night Live tradition.

Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.

This has been a big breakout season for Ashley Padilla on the Saturday Night Live cast (I’ve written a couple of times about her this year).

Last week, Padilla was part of an unusual sketch that was based around the idea of making her and host Ryan Gosling “break” (break character by laughing) by presenting her with new material that she had not yet seen. I noted at the time that I thought it was fine to do occasional jokes based on making an actor break.



There was another sketch last week that involved Gosling, playing a Cyclops, also seemingly trying to get Padilla, specifically, to break.



Well, in the cold open this week, James Austin Johnson played President Donald Trump, as he often does (Johnson has a famously good Trump impression). At one point, “Trump” breaks the fourth wall and starts to make commentary on the cast members on the stage, and it sure looks like Padilla did not know what Johnson was going to riff about for her…



She IS adorable when she breaks, so I wonder if this will just become a bit of a running gag on the show.

I wouldn’t be against it!