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SNL Second-Guessing: Maya Rudolph, SNL Cast Aced "Teacher PSA" Sketch

For this round of SNL Second-Guessing, we make sure that Maya Rudolph and the SNL Cast get well-deserved extra credit for "Teacher PSA."

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If it's a Saturday during NBC's Saturday Night Live off-season, then it must be time for another round of "SNL Second-Guessing," where we look back at an episode from the 49th season (based on the show being repeated during the summer off-season) and spotlight a sketch or a situation that deserved a bit more attention. Sometimes, it's for good reasons – as was the case with our first three. To kick things off, we looked at the "Moulin Rouge" sketch from March 9th's Josh Brolin-hosted and Ariana Grande-performing show. Following that, we looked at the "Please Don't Destroy – We Got Too High (ft. Travis Scott)" sketch from March 30th's Ramy Youssef-hosted and Travis Scott-performing show. From there, we discussed the "Jumanji" sketch from April 6th's Kristen Wiig-hosted and Raye-performing show. Other times, it could be for not-so-good reasons, as was the case with the "CNN Town Hall South Carolina" Cold Open from February 3rd's Ayo Edebiri-hosted and Jennifer Lopez-performing show – when then-GOP POTUS candidate Nikki Haley played SNL hard.

SNL
Image: SNL Screencaps

For this go-around, we're looking back at May 11th's show with host Maya Rudolph and musical guest Vampire Weekend – the second-to-last episode of the season. Just so we can put it out on the table and move on, we weren't exactly big fans of the show. We're not sure if the show kicking things off with a Mother's Day theme for the cold open and Rudolph's monologue created too nice and sweet of a family vibe for anything edgy, but the night's sketches were a mixed bag of "okay" but not up to expectations considering the comedy legend who was hosting (Rudolph was in excellent form).

But we feel bad for burying our thoughts on the best sketch of the night at the end of our initial review because "Teacher PSA" was one of the season's best ensembles for a live sketch. We had Rudolph, Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, Andrew Dismukes, Punkie Johnson, James Austin Johnson, and Michael Longfellow – all portraying teachers with a special end-of-the-year message for their students and their parents: "Y'all won." Going back to the pandemic, it seemed to us that a lot of parents were more than willing to throw teachers under the "COVID bus" to get them back in the classroom – just so they didn't have to face the harsh reality that they actually don't know how to teach their own children. So even if they weren't real teachers, it was nice to see someone speaking on their behalf – and you could tell that there was some serious research into the writing because it hit close to home for a lot of teachers on social media. While everyone involved deserved serious bonus points for their roles, Nwodim hit us hard when we finally figured out where she was going with "T-S-I-D-D-A-H-N."

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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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