This Week’s “SNL” Offered a Memorable Spanish Lesson

There’s a particular art to crafting comedy that features multiple languages that’s funny even to someone who doesn’t understand the full scope of what’s being said. There’s a fantastic Suzy Eddie Izzard routine that finds Izzard reciting French lessons where the humor comes from the context and delivery as much as anything else.

Last night’s SNL featured a sketch in that vein, in which guest host Ana de Armas and Marcello Hernández played transfer students who reveal that a high school Spanish teacher — Mikey Day’s Señor MacKintosh — might not have the greatest grasp of the language.

Part of what makes the sketch work is the way that it builds on a relatively simple premise — in other words, that language lessons might not accurately represent how a language is actually spoken. And the contrast between de Armas’s and Hernández’s rapid-fire Spanish and Day’s, shall we say, less deft use of the language was a perennial source of humor throughout the sketch.

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It also wasn’t the only sketch last night to feature Day in memorably awkward mode; this week’s SNL also saw the triumphant (?) return of one Matt Schatt, this time with fewer Smurfs and more nipples. It’s not an image you’ll soon forget.

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