Kenan Thompson — the kid from All That, Good Burger, and Fat Albert — is 36 today, and to celebrate, we’re taking a look back at his most memorable sketches from Saturday Night Live. it’s hard to believe, but Thompson is just finishing his 12th season on SNL. To put that in perspective, the only cast member to last longer on the show is Darrell Hammond, who appeared in the cast for 14 seasons, from 1995 to 2009. In his 12 years, Thompson has starred in countless memorable sketches. It’s hard to imagine the show without him, even if we and the writers will someday have to, so without further ado, here’s Kenan Thompson’s best SNL moments.
Steve Harvey
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In this episode, Steve Harvey talks about phobias, even though, he never quite learns to pronounce the word correctly. We find out that Harvey is deathly afraid of his mustache crawling down his throat and choking him to death. Also, he thinks that a fear of horses is known as “equilibrium.” In the sketch, Kevin Hart plays a man who is deathly afraid of horses, because he thinks one will steal his ring. A psychologist attempts to cure him of this by bringing out a stuffed horse for him to pet, but unfortunately, when one of the show’s producers plays a prank by having the horse appear to make a noise, his problem only gets worse. Oh well, I guess his equilibrium is never going away.
Black Jeopardy
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If the only joke in this entire sketch had been Kenan’s character being named “Alex Treblack,” it still would’ve been pretty good. That said, the real humor comes from Louis C.K.’s awkward African American studies professor character not knowing the rules of the game. He comes expecting to answer questions about black history, but is not prepared for questions like “She think she cute” (the answer is “Monique”). Really, the best line comes when it looks he’s finally has the game down:
“Had that been me, I wouldn’t have been around those dogs in the first place.”
“Who is Michael Vick?”
“No sorry, we were looking for ‘Who is Sarah McGlockton?”
“Oh come on, you mean Sarah McLachlan.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Charles Barkley And Shaq on Update
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If you’re familiar with TNT’s NBA coverage, you know that this is a fairly spot-on parody of the interactions between Shaq and Chuck on the show. Jay Pharaoh is the Shaq to Kenan’s Barkley, and while he’s a bit too skinny for the role (he doesn’t quite “look like a baked potato” as this sketch presumes), the voice is accurate enough that it doesn’t really matter. The idea that Shaq isn’t particularly bright is a regular theme in these bits, as it is this time around, when Barkley jokes that Shaq “grew so tall his brain fell through his head!” Really, it’s a very well-done take on the friendly teasing these two basketball legends give each other on every TNT broadcast.
Poetry Class
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Admittedly, it takes a few minutes into the sketch for Kenan to have his moment, but when he does, he completely steals the scene, with his haiku “Hey, Where’s My Weed At,” where he shows himself to clearly be the best poet in the class. When Vanessa Bayer’s overly-bubbly poetry teacher says “I’m curious if the main character gets his weed back,” Kenan simply replies, “yeah, me too.”
What Up With That
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Let’s start out by acknowledging that this sketch is a bit of an acquired taste. It’s the sort of humor that thrives on being so repetitive that eventually it comes back around to being funny again. To some people, material like that can be genius, but for others, it can just be annoying. But either way you look at it, it’s easily Kenan’s most famous sketch, so it would have been rather awkward to not include it here. For those of you are not big “What Up With That” fans, well, just be glad I didn’t include “Deep House Dish.”
