Saturday Night Live is officially back -- and its first episode on the 2024 TV schedule had Gen Z swooning with Jacob Elordi in the hosting spot. While he had younger viewers finally tuning in to the variety show, critics and other SNL fans weren’t quite feeling this week's sketches. As an avid fan of the show, I have to agree with the latter, as the episode focused on Elordi’s good looks instead of challenging him comedically. What’s even more disappointing, is the Season 49 host did get to do something different with a hilarious parody of Pimp My Ride, but the sketch was cut for time.
The Please Don’t Destroy sketch in question was a spoof of the hit MTV series Pimp My Ride. Elordi plays a 30 Rock janitor who is getting reprimanded by his boss for being late to work. After overhearing that he’s having car trouble, Ben, John, and Martin reach out to a local body shop and pimp out his van. Check it out for yourself:
If you’ve never seen an episode of the MTV series, it looked a lot like the sketch does. Just like Ben, John, and Martin did in the sketch, the so-called experts on Pimp My Ride often zoned in on one trait about the customer, and then used that to influence the entire makeover of the car. Of course, they never took out all the seats to install mop buckets, but they did regularly paint the cars obnoxious colors and include add-ons that weren’t necessary and made the normal functions of a car difficult (usually in the form of random DVD players). It really felt like I was watching a new episode and not a hilarious SNL sketch featuring an A-lister.
The accuracy of the parody, the Xzibit cameo, and Elordi’s portrayal of a character whose attractiveness is not the punch line have fans wondering why this sketch didn’t make the cut. Unfortunately, we’ll never know for sure, but at least we live in an age where SNL uploads videos to YouTube so we can still enjoy it. Hopefully, all the love the Please Don’t Destroy video is getting will show Lorne Michaels that their sketches deserve a spot on the live broadcast more often.
While most of the sketches were a miss, there were still some great aspects of this week's Saturday Night Live. James Austin Johnson’s scary accurate Trump impression continues to be a hit, and Colin Jost and Michael Che’s banter at the Weekend Update desk has never been better.
The show also got a boost with the help of Megan Thee Stallion who joined Reneé Rapp onstage singing the Mean Girls’ original track “Not My Fault,” and Rachel McAdams introduced the performance. This was a big deal as it was the first time the two Regina George-s had interacted in public, though McAdams did show her support for Rapp's casting.
All-in-all, it was a jam-packed episode, so some things had to be cut out. However, why was it this hilarious Pimp My Ride parody? It showed off Jacob Elordi's comedic chops, and was truly hysterical.
If you missed this week’s episode, you can stream it with a Peacock subscription or head on over to the official SNL YouTube page to watch the clips -- like this hilarious one that was cut for time.
