Bad Bunny Brings Bilingual Laughs (With Mick Jagger And Pedro Pascal) To Saturday Night Live
Every now and then, "Saturday Night Live" brings in a host who has plenty of name recognition but doesn't have much comedic experience. Whether it's athletes like Travis Kelce last season or musician Johnny Cash back in 1982, "SNL" isn't afraid to bring in a famous face and have some fun with them. That brings us to Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican hip hop artist who is a massive star in the music scene but has only just recently started to make a dent in Hollywood.
You might have seen Bad Bunny, or Benito Martínez Ocasio, in his supporting turn in "Bullet Train," his four-episode arc in "Narcos: Mexico," or his cameo in "F9: The Fast Saga." Bad Bunny was also supposed to star in Sony's comic book movie El Muerto, until that fell apart. But he's mostly known for his Spanish rap career, he hasn't really done any comedy, and he's also not the most fluent speaker of English, making him a potentially challenging host for "SNL."
However, I am pleased to report that Bad Bunny's episode of "SNL" made an impressive use of his English shortcomings by delivering a variety of hilarious sketches that let him speak Spanish. It wasn't all smooth sailing, but this episode went far better than I had anticipated, especially since he got a little help from Pedro Pascal, as well as surprise appearances by former cast member Fred Armisen and ... Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger? Yeah, we weren't expecting that, and we certainly weren't expecting it to happen twice. So let's dig into the highs and lows of Bad Bunny's "Saturday Night Live."
What was the best sketch of the night?
Even though the whole point of "Saturday Night Live" is to deliver a live sketch comedy show that's put together in a single week, sometimes it's the pre-recorded sketches that land the most successfully. In this case, we've got a sketch focusing on the Age of Discovery, when Spain sent explorers off to visit China. However, the explorers found a New World in the west, and instead of bringing back silk and spices from what they viewed as an exotic land, instead, they got a bunch of garbage.
Marcello Hernandez and Bad Bunny are the royals receiving news from their explorers, played by Mikey Day and Fred Armisen, presumably because "SNL" didn't have another Hispanic cast member to put in those roles, and having two white dudes play Spanish explorers would have been weird. As it stands, Day's Spanish pronunciation is quite Starbucks suburban, and it's a shame someone else couldn't be brought in for this sketch, but I digress.
Much of the comedy comes from Hernandez and Bad Bunny being disappointed by the presentation of a turkey, which they see as a chicken with testicles on its face, or a llama, viewed as a horse but worse. They're disgusted by an apple filled with goo (a tomato), and at first they're reluctant to light up the tobacco dookie given to them (a cigar). The way Hernandez and Bad Bunny gleefully roast all these terrible items in Spanish is really funny, and I could honestly watch several more versions of this sketch where the explorers bring back more items from the New World.
How was the rest of the episode?
As for the rest of the episode, there were some fantastic highs, and some awkward lows. Coming in not far behind the "Age of Discovery" sketch was another film from Please Don't Destroy. They had the best sketch in the season 49 premiere with Pete Davidson, and they came pretty close to landing the crown again in this episode. Bad Bunny plays himself, and he comes to the Please Don't Destroy boys with an idea for a "Shrek" movie. Well, actually he just shows up dressed like Shrek, and he kinda lets the comedy trio eventually end up there, playing the whole situation in kind of an aloof manner. Thanks to some awful animatics, some unsettling make-up work, and the absurdity of Bad Bunny's A24 take on a new "Shrek" movie with Michael Jackson as the main character, this was a laugh riot.
Next, we have the return of Pedro Pascal to "SNL." This wasn't entirely a surprise, since Bad Bunny's monologue brought Pedro Pascal in for an assist, but I didn't expect to see a character Pascal played in the episode he hosted from season 48 make a comeback. In one of the episode's funnier sketches, Pascal played an overprotective mother who isn't too thrilled when her son (Marcello Hernandez) brings home a white girl. Well, that mother is back, and this time she's joined by Bad Bunny as Marcello's equally disapproving aunt, both sporting their beards without any effort to hide them, which only enhances the hilarity of the sketch. Fresh featured player Chloe Troast is the girlfriend this time, and honestly, unlike other repeat sketch characters, this one felt like it worked just as well as the first time. There were still plenty of great nods to niche traits of Hispanic mothers, and the Spanish-language punchlines were right on the money, especially when they referred to Troast's character as Greta Thunberg and Old Navy.
"SNL" also managed to make use of Bad Bunny without needing him to speak Spanish, or even say much of anything, as evidenced by this decent rap battle sketch inspired by "8 Mile." In the final rap battle featuring Eminem as B-Rabbit, he takes the wind out of his opponents sails by acknowledging all the things that they might use to make fun of him, such as being a white rapper, living in a trailer park, and having a friend named Cheddar Bob who shot himself in the leg. When Mikey Day does something similar up against Bad Bunny, he takes his self-deprecation a little too far, by addressing the incest with his cousin, being catfished by his own dad, and not having any balls. It's a solid premise, and makes good use of Bad Bunny without forcing him to speak a lot of English, which really worked in his favor comedically. It wasn't entirely a home run, but it mostly worked.
That brings us to one of the more spectacular failures of the night. In a way, this sketch is kind of adorable, but at the same time, it also shows the comedic limitations of Bad Bunny when relying on him to speak English for laughs. Granted, Bad Bunny has no problem maintaining a certain level of charm, even when the punchline gets flubbed a bit. It's clear he's enthusiastic and having a lot of fun, but since he doesn't always say his lines clearly, and his timing isn't the best, a few of the sketches ended up feeling a bit stilted. It never felt like it was a total disaster, but this sketch felt like the biggest dud of the night. Of course, it wasn't all Bad Bunny's fault, because the premise of this sketch would have felt pretty weak, no matter who was taking the lead.
What the hell is Mick Jagger doing here?
In a completely unexpected turn of events, Mick Jagger popped up on "SNL." First, Jagger made a surprise and nonsensical appearance in this "Telenovela" sketch. This sketch was actually pretty decent, and again, made great use of Bad Bunny's primary language. The sketch finds Bad Bunny and Marcello Hernandez playing two actors in a Spanish soap opera who are just about to get into a fight scene, but then they're interrupted by the maid, played by Punkie Johnson as a Black actor who has no idea how to speak Spanish properly. This was a fairly funny sketch all around, especially when Punkie's character mistakes the use of the word "negro," which is Spanish for the color black, for being used in a racial way.
Then, for some reason, Mick Jagger shows up as their father in the scene, and even though it's amusing to see him in a terrible stereotypical mustache and speaking Spanish, it didn't feel like it served much purpose beyond, "Hey, look, it's Mick Jagger!" Other than that, the sketch kinda imploded on itself anyway, since the writers didn't seem to know how to end it properly. But that's a staple of "SNL" sketches.
What's crazy is that wasn't the only surprise use of Mick Jagger that we got in this episode. Using Jagger in a similar twist ending, he shows up as a man who has been pretending to be a nun so he can sleep with all the other nuns. This twist was actually a little more amusing, and it made sense within the context of the sketch, because the entire time, the audience is made to think Bad Bunny is the deceptive nun in question, behaving exactly like a man poorly disguised as a nun would. This was actually one of the sketches where Bad Bunny's stilted English worked in his favor, because it played up the idea that he was a terrible liar in this situation.
Why was Mick Jagger in this episode of "SNL" twice? I couldn't tell you, but I guess we're (kinda) glad he was there.
How was Bad Bunny as a host?
All right, so knowing that Bad Bunny doesn't have a wealth of acting experience, especially when it comes to comedy, how was he as an "SNL" host? Overall, I'd say Bad Bunny was pretty good. It went about as well as any average episode of "SNL," and it was refreshing to see the cast and writers figure out how to utilize Bad Bunny's primary language and average English-speaking abilities rather than forcing him into sketches that just didn't vibe with him. Sure, there were some hiccups where Bad Bunny didn't fit into the equation all that smoothly, but all-in-all, having a largely bilingual episode of "SNL" was a nice change of pace, and it shows that comedy can work in any language. Plus, it was clear that Bad Bunny wasn't shy about showing his goofier side. It also helps that even in the face of not speaking English very well, something he fully acknowledges in his monologue (with some help from Pedro Pascal), he's just oozing confidence, and not even the spotlight of "SNL" made him overly nervous or unsure of himself. So kudos to Bad Bunny.
Can we just stop with the political cold opens?
On one final note here, I'd just like to stress how much better it would be if "SNL" didn't feel obligated to open pretty much every single episode with a topical political sketch. I know that the past couple decades have brought about huge ratings for mocking the likes of George W. Bush, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Hilary Clinton, and especially Donald Trump. But the reason a lot of people end up tuning out of "SNL" and never really get to see how good the show still is (almost) every single week is because the show begins with some of their most mediocre (and sometimes downright terrible) material.
This week was another example of subpar comedy about what's happening in the political landscape, this time focusing on mega dork Jim Jordan and his complete failure to find any amount of success as the new Speaker of the House in US Congress, and they managed to shoehorn James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump in there (a fantastic impression, but a character I'd prefer just not seeing). It just never feels like it measures up to the kind of political satire that "SNL" is remembered for, and I wish they would open the show with a variety of sketches rather than relying on this kind of drivel.
Anyway, we'll have to see how "SNL" opens the show next week when stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze hosts the show with Foo Fighters as the musical guest. Otherwise, stay tuned to The Ten To One Podcast for more about new episodes of "SNL."