Switching to Spanish, “SNL” soars

In the 953 “Saturday Night Live” episodes, the hosts have ranged afar.
They’ve gone from 7-year-old Drew Barrymore to 88-year-old Betty White. They’ve included actors, singers, comedians and Elon Musk, plus presidential candidates, a president’s son, a presidential spokesman and Miskell Spillman, 80, who said she needed one more thrill in life; she would have another 14 years to savor it.
Despite all the differences, most had a common thread – the English language. That sort of changed Saturday (Oct. 21), with Bad Bunny (shown here with Pedro Pascal) as host.
Bunny, who’s from Puerto Rico, does speak English, but it’s far from his first language. So “SNL” had three sketches – each of them quite clever – that were done mainly in Spanish.
It’s been there before, with sketches involving a Spanish-language game show (“Who is More Macho?”) and soap opera. But it’s never done three in one night. To pull it off, it needed help from:
— Marcello Hernandez, in his second year at “SNL.” He grew up in Miami, with Cuban and Dominican roots. In a previous sketch, he and Ana de Armas spoke Spanish at a blistering pace, overwhelming their language teacher. Now he got key spots in all three sketches.
— Pedro Pascal, a Chilean native who grew up in the U.S. He hosted “SNL” last season, after starring in the English-language hits “The Mandalorian” and “The Last of Us.”
— Fred Armisen, a former “SNL” regular. His mother is Venezuelan and he spent some time in Brazil,. He had the night’s best moments as Christopher Columbus, trying to impress the Spanish monarchy with such questionable American finds as tobacco, turkeys and pumpkins.
— And Mick Jagger, whose ex-wife Bianca is from Nicaragua.
Yes, “SNL” is the kind of show where Jagger can drop in unannounced. Lady Gaga was also there, to introduce one of Bad Bunny’s songs; last week, Taylor Swift did an introduction.
And in general, the show is now back on track, after a so-so season-opener a week earlier.
That time, it seemed so spooked by the Israeli tragedy that it mostly avoided anything topical. This time, it jumped right in.
It started with Jim Jordan, fuming about the stalemate after he lost his Speaker of the House bid. “All I want to do is get Congress back to work so I can shut it down.”
Later, in “Weekend Update,” it showed nine of the people now running for Speaker – six of whom were clearly George Santos in disguise.
And Colin Jost showed an image Donald Trump had put on social media – Trump at the defendant’s table, alongside a drawing of Jesus Christ. “Because if there’s one guy whose trial went well, it’s Jesus.”
In English or Spanish, the show clicked. We’ll hope it continues this Saturday (Oct. 28), with comedian Nate Burgatze as host and the Foo Fighters as music guests.