This week, Natasha Lyonne hosted the finale of Saturday Night Live‘s 47th season on the air. When you have someone with one of the most distinctive voices in the film and television industry hosting your show, leaning into that is always an option. And that’s what SNL did, pairing Lyonne with Mikey Day on a sketch where the duo play a pair of play-by-play commentators working on a 1950s New York Yankees game.
The twist? Lyonne’s character has been prescribed cold medicine, which in this case is, well, methamphetamines. All of which means that Lyonne has the opportunity to tell a series of increasingly inappropriate baseball anecdotes, culuminating in an absolutely horrific yarn involving a hungry Babe Ruth.
Throw in James Austin Johnson as another member of the broadcast team — sending up period menswear and whisky to boot — and you have a memorable five minutes of comedy. Day, Lyonne and Johnson all have immediately memorable voices and pinpoint comic timing.
Throw in the time-honored comedic trope of someone saying wildly inappropriate things — and throw some baseball history into the mix — well, all of that makes for of a solid (if a bit scattershot) sketch.
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