SNL: A Family’s Home Videos Binge Takes a Maury Povich-y Turn
Sit down a spell, kids, and let me tell you about a magical time.
It was the Golden Era of daytime television. A time when talk shows were indistinguishable from professional wrestling and paternity tests had all the dignity of rapping clowns. A glorious time brought to life by Saturday Night Live‘s “Home Movies.”
The sketch starts off with a family going through old video tapes (kids, video tapes were what people watched movies on before streaming). Guest host Dakota Johnson plays the doting mom Amber, Mikey Day is the loving dad Ray, and Sarah Sherman is the sweet ol’ Nan to Andrew Dismukes’ character. They revisit memories of old soccer games, blowing out birthday candles… and then they find a tape labeled “Big Announcement.”
That’s when it’s revealed that, in their youth, mom and dad were on Corey, a parody of Maury — a daytime talk show whose major claim to fame is having numerous paternity tests revealed to the prospective parents in front of a rowdy audience. The mothers and soon-to-be fathers were the trashiest of trash and episodes frequently broke into all-out brawls.
James Austin Johnson plays up Corey Dervich to the hilt, egging on a younger Amber and Ray. Amber is in a sheer tube top and a skirt so short it might have been a belt. Ray looks like the rhythm guitarist for a nu metal band (kids, nu metal was what we listened to to irritate our parents in the ’90s). The sketch peaks when Amber struts around Corey yelling, “I got this ass, don’t I?” and slapping her butt. Cut to the older Amber grinning at her appalled son like she’s won a Tony Award.
Marcello Hernandez completes the Maury trope as the second possible father: a GameStop employee named Spooky who turns out to have been sleeping with Dismukes’ mother and grandmother at the same time.
It’s a marvelous combination of nostalgia and cringe as the son grows more and more horrified at what his family got up to when he was just a child. Let that be a lesson to anyone under the age of 30: don’t ask your parents questions you really don’t want to know the answers to.
Watch the sketch above, then weigh in on the Jan. 27 SNL hosted by Dakota Johnson featuring musical guest Justin Timberlake.
Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon were terrific and
hilarious 😂….
Hopefully, SNL won’t ask Dakota Johnson back .
The Please Don’t Destroy was fantastic. So was this sketch. The second guest on WU was great (Bowen, I love ya, but retire the character you did this week).
I agree. These were the highlights for me. Some other sketches were mixed bag like Barry Gibbs, with Fallon growing increasingly insufferable but the Bluey lines were good, or fell flat altogether like the football opener. Worst one of the season for me.
The agree was meant for Patrick’s comment.
Outstanding sketch!!!!!
Great sketch, really took me back to the 90s.
I loved this sketch. One of my favorites of all time. It made up for that godawful “chicken fongers” sketch.
Very funny sketch, and funny article to go with it!
Laughed pretty hard at this. Glad we finally got another PDD vid. Other than that, the episode was kinda meh