It’s rare that I deem an SNL skit as must watch these days, but thats exactly what Pete Davidson’s “Stu” sketch is: must watch.
Jason Bateman was a pretty good host because nobody plays the straight man in a skit better than him. So as this Santa and the elves sketch kicked off, you’re sitting there wondering what the hell is going on, then the Stan beat kicks in and it’s a wrap. I figured like most skits this would fizzle out in the first 30 seconds. Nope, it seems like Lorne Michaels and company let Pete Davidson just do his thing and we got three legitimately impressive and original verses in the Santa/Stan remix. As Papa Giorgio said, it’s the best musical sketch they’ve had since Lonely Island. The Eminem clip at the end was a nice nod to the original song. Also, shout out to Bowen Yang for his dead on Elton John.
Pete Davidson is such an interesting cast member on SNL because I feel like he rarely gets used in big time spots. He is often relegated to background characters, even if they are laugh out loud funny like his Count Chocula when Dave Chappelle was hosting. He might just be a hard person to write for, which reminds me of an old quote that stuck with me by Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, How I Met Your Mother, Freaks and Geeks):
“When I was like 21 years old and we had just finished a show called Freaks and Geeks, Judd Apatow, who made that show and a bunch of our movies took a bunch of us aside. What he said to me, actually, is, ‘You’re kind of a weird guy. The only way you are going to make it is if you write.”
A lot of these cast members probably just don’t get the prime sketches because it’s hard to write for them, which makes sense when the most famous SNL alum usually either flame out or were outright fired (Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Damon Wayans, Sarah Silverman, Robert Downey Jr etc). Davidson seems to have one foot out the door anyways as he dabbles more with movies written by, ironically enough, the comedy godfather himself Judd Apatow.
A+ sketch by SNL.
The 300s 