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SNL Second-Guessing: Grande, Yang Absurdly Wonderful in "Moulin Rouge"

In our first edition of SNL Second-Guessing, we sing the praises of Ariana Grande and Bowen Yang in the "Moulin Rouge" sketch from March 9th.

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With NBC's Saturday Night Live having wrapped its 49th season earlier this month, we would have normally put our SNL coverage into summer storage for the next few months. But as we've mentioned previously, this summer isn't quite the same as previous ones because this is the summer leading into the milestone 50th season. We already know that NBC has something big planned for a February 2025 weekend that culminates in a live primetime special. But then there's the matter of Season 50 itself and the questions that come with it. Who's returning? Is anyone leaving? Will this be EP Lorne Michaels's final season? Will the season have a normal host schedule or have something themed to fit the occasion? With all of that in mind, we've decided to stay open for business – and since we're getting repeats of Season 49 episodes on Saturday nights anyway, we thought we would start a series called "SNL Second-Guessing."

SNL
Image: SNL Screencaps

Here's how it works. We're not rethinking our episode reviews or anything like that – those are locked in. We're also not second-guessing anything that SNL did. What we are doing is looking back at the episode that's being repeated that weekend and noting a sketch that we've either grown to appreciate more since we first checked it out or a sketch that maybe we loved but didn't show enough love to. With March 9th's Josh Brolin-hosted and Ariana Grande-performing show getting a return visit to our screens this weekend, we want to make sure that the "Moulin Rouge" sketch gets the recognition it deserves.

In the sketch (if you know the writers, please note it in the comments because they definitely deserve the love), Mikey Day's PBS host Ken Burns looks back at the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film, revealing that Luhrmann had a month longer cut of the classic 10-song medley ready to go based on what songs they thought they could get the rights to. From there, we see Nicole Kidman (Grande) and Ewan McGregor (Bowen Yang) pulling off one of the most impressive examples of musical absurdity at its finest – and we also get a preview of what to expect from Grande and Yang in the upcoming film version of Wicked.

Aside from the fact that the two have great chemistry and complementary voices, the sketch worked because they both committed to the madness of stringing together legally safe numbers of lyrics from other songs and songs in the public domain. And even when they do break, the fact that they're enjoying themselves in the midst of some serious comedic heavy lifting only makes us appreciate it more. Honestly, we were breaking every time that they went back into "Happy Birthday." If you haven't had a chance to check out the sketch or if we have you interested enough to check it our again, we have it waiting for you above – and make sure to check out SNL's entire Brolin/Grande YouTube playlist.

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Ray FlookAbout Ray Flook

Serving as Television Editor since 2018, Ray began five years earlier as a contributing writer/photographer before being brought onto the core BC team in 2017.
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