In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live, Martin Short tried his hand at directing a Charlie Brown Christmas pageant.
“You’re watching Freeform’s 25 Days of Christmas,” the sketch begins. “We now return to the animated classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas.“
We cut to the Charlie Brown kids dancing to iconic theme song “Linus and Lucy” ahead of the beginning of rehearsal, when Martin Short enters and yells, “Stop dancing!”
“Um, who are you?” asks a girl played by Chloe Fineman.
“I’m Drake Tuttle, local theater legend,” Short replies. “Your principal hired me to direct your pageant.”
“But Charlie Brown’s our director,” says the character of Ashley Padilla.
“And I’m sorry to say he’s dead,” Tuttle says.
This stuns the kids, but Tuttle continues, “To me. He’s dead to me…Sorry, I shouldn’t have paused after ‘dead.’ That was my mistake.”
The director then introduces his choreographer, Le’Stat, played by Bowen Yang, who insists that he’s a genius.
“All right, first up, some housekeeping,” says Tuttle after some back-and-forth with Le’Stat. “There’ll be no little kid acting in this pageant, only good acting.”
Subsequently, Le’Stat asks the kids to audition their hip hop dance skills for him, only for them to dance around just as they had before, and as every Charlie Brown character has danced throughout time.
Tuttle has some interaction with Pig-Pen (Mikey Day) — though he keeps referring to him as “pig penis.” He also expresses his tolerance for kids on the spectrum after engaging with a boy in a red shirt who loves his blanket (Marcello Hernandez). And the sketch ends on Kenan Thompson’s Snoopy, who when asked if he’s a boy or girl dog, asks, “Snoopy look like a b*tch to you?”
Short hosted tonight, with Hozier as musical guest. For video of the sketch, check back later.
