Saturday Night Live has a long history of riffing on Jeopardy! Perhaps the apex of this came with the show’s recurring Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches, which paired Will Ferrell’s exasperated take on Alex Trebek with Darrell Hammond’s malevolent incarnation of Sean Connery. Jeopardy! remains a pop culture touchstone, so it wasn’t shocking to see SNL parody the show again on the first episode of its 51st season.
The bulk of the sketch was centered around host Bad Bunny’s character Duke, a man whose grasp of trivia is extensive but for whom the structure of Jeopardy! is more challenging — specifically, the part about phrasing one’s answer in the form of a question. The fact that one of the clues involves the Baha Men’s song “Who Let the Dogs Out” adds an almost existential element to the proceedings.
The sketch makes good use of Bad Bunny’s talent for deadpan comedy, and it has other pleasures as well; I chuckled every time Andrew Dismukes’s host referred to Lucas, another contenstant (played by Kenan Thompson), as “Luck-Ass.” There’s an element of absurdity in most game shows; this sketch zeroed in on it and made the most of it.
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Walton Goggins hosted this season’s penultimate episodeIf it seems like it hasn’t been that long since Bad Bunny was last on SNL, there’s a reason for that: he was the musical guest for the season 50 finale. (He also made a few memorable appearances on the SNL50 specials.) Did he address this in his opening monologue? He did. That monologue also featured a surprise cameo from Jon Hamm, who wasn’t the only suprise guest to turn up this week. It made for a solid start to this long-running show’s latest season.
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