SNL has been lucky of late when their sketches try to get musical. One of the high-points of last week, when Halsey hosted, was when Melissa Villeseñor busted out her first-rate Lady Gaga impersonation for no good reason other than she does a first-rate Lady Gaga. This week scored an attempted bar fight to Mika’s “Lollipop.” And it, too, was glorious.
It could have been real ugly. The setting is a redneck bar in the deep South. Host Don Cheadle got into a tiff with a local played by Beck Bennett. (The sketch strangely downplayed any potential socio-political satire.) Bennett’s character tells one of his bros to play his “fightin’ song.” He screwed up. Instead they got the bouncy joys of Mika’s “Lollipop.” And they couldn’t turn it off.
But they persisted. As they raised their dukes and got ready to pounce, their movements couldn’t help get into sync with the music. Pretty soon it was clear the song had turned them into lovers, not fighters. It even turned them into music critics: Soon they were forgetting the fightin’ words that got them into this fine mess, and were remarking on the eccentric structure of Mika’s hit song. By the end it was a full-blown hoe-down — a musical number with a cast of a dozen, plus streamers from out of nowhere.
Still, Mika failed. Once the song ended, Cheadle threw the first punch, and things returned to normal.
