Bless Kenan Thompson for understanding that a world without sports is hungry for just about any sports-related content right now. The latest episode of SNL At Home featured Thompson doing his best to entertain a sports world largely on hold while COVID-19 ravages the known world, with the longtime Saturday Night Live star starring in three sports-related sketches to fill the void.
The first was Charles Barkley appearing on What’s Up With That to tell a Michael Jordan story apparently cut during The Last Dance. Thompson later donned a pair of gloves and got some golf clubs out to play OJ Simpson, who is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic just fine. Except for the moments that make him very… mad.
Later on, Thompson himself reprised his role as retired Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz. Thompson’s version of the Red Sox slugger is obsessed with obscure foods and full of sponsorship opportunities, and none of that changed with the SNL mainstay stuck at home. Thompson has played Ortiz like this for years, including in 2014 where a trip to the White House to celebrate the Red Sox winning the World Series was mostly about the “big lunch” the team had.
The same was the case earlier in the current SNL season, which saw Thompson play Ortiz after he was shot in the Dominican Republic. Now that Big Papi is at home, though, it was up to Thompson to play Ortiz making a Big Dominican Lunch for himself.
“How you gonna are a big lunch in quarantine?” Ortiz asked. “You gotta learn to improvise.”
Ortiz then made “a very simple dish based on things lying around the house.” Though according to some context clues and rough Spanish translation, Ortiz apparently has monkey paws and dolphin tongues lying around to make for lunch. The sketch is big on hyperbole, but the weird sponsorship deals are what really steal the show.
Ortiz says the sponsorship list starts with an “exploded can of beans,” and his hand sanitizer ad is really what stole the show.
“Have you been washing your hands like a thousand times a day. well then you’re in pure hell,” Thompson said, grimacing. “Pure Hell: why is my skin just like a bunch of dust?”
Papi also broke out his “seven meat sancocho,” which he claims PETA called “a genocide.” It was an extremely weird sketch, of course, but clearly a character that Thompson loves to play. And in a world where actual sports aren’t really happening, it was a welcome distraction to watch Big Papi cook for a bit.
