- Austin Butler hosts Saturday Night Live’s Marzipan advertisement.
- The sketch features a group of British kids trying to convince viewers that marzipan is wonderful.
- The cast performs a song and dance about how much they love the confection, which is just sugar, almond meal and honey combined.
In Austin Butler’s genuinely excellent show as Saturday Night Live’s host, a Marzipan advertisement recruits a bizarre collection of British kids to try to sell the confection. This is one of the sketch’s stranger moments. Simply put, the idea is that some kids are trying to persuade us that marzipan is wonderful. For those who don’t know, marzipan is simply sugar, honey, and almond meal combined, making it a dessert that primarily tastes like almonds. Not that it is a horrible thing, but Kenan Thompson’s comparison of it to a wide range of chocolate goodies at the beginning of the sketch and his declaration that Marzipan was the greatest choice served as a quick reminder that we were watching a comedy show.
In a way that is, to put it mildly, troubling, Butler, Chloe Fineman, Marcello Hernandez, Sarah Sherman, and Bowen Yang all confess their passion for the treat in the advertisement, which is being led by Thompson. This is primarily due to Yang’s inability to speak about his love for Marzipan and his tendency to yell whenever he is questioned about it or why it was so excellent.
What if Captain Von Trapp made his children push Marzipan at dinner parties instead of singing? is a question that the ad spoof in the sketch poses, daring no comedy programme to address it before.
The sketch’s hilarity comes from its simplicity; the cast simply performs a song and share how much they love Marzipan. Which, again, is just almond meal, sugar, and honey mixed together. The sketch excels thanks to the cast’s stage presence and incredible dynamic, as well as the simply absurd lines they have to deliver with near-straight faces and, quite frankly, believable earnestness. Butler’s line, “If a stranger said to me, come in my car, I’ve got candy; I’d say no. But if they said I have Marzipan, I’d say abduct me baby,” serves as a testament to how absurd a sketch about Marzipan can get; but it also leaves us worried that Butler may actually follow a stranger promising the sweet.
During the sketch, Thompson also advises viewers not to eat Marzipan “within 12 hours of going to sleep or after 12 hours of waking up.” We’re no experts, but it is safe to say this is probably not the best commercial for Marzipan. We know a cautionary tale when we see one.
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