Dave Chappelle's 'Cut For Time' SNL Sketch Is About As Weird As You Could Hope For

By Vivian Kane | Videos | November 16, 2016 |

By Vivian Kane | Videos | November 16, 2016 |

Over the last few years— and maybe especially this season— SNL has really been ramping up the absurd. What makes David S. Pumpkins (or, to a far lesser degree, Larry David’s bitch who wants a donut) funny? Possibly literally no one knows. That’s the point of absurdist comedy, I guess. To get it right, it has to be actual art, but appear as low brow as possible, with no one— often not even the creators— being able to explain why it works. It’s Dadaism meets farts. It’s funny because it just is.

Is the above Cut For Time sketch from Dave Chappelle’s Saturday Night Live episode that level of absurdist humor? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But, again, these things are hard to define. The idea of creating a narrative behind a bland motel painting of ducks and stuff is funny. What’s funnier to me is thinking about the behind-the-scenes logistics of just compiling either a video or a bunch of stock footage of ducks and a swan with no narrative at all. Muted, thinking about the B crew putting the thing together, is almost (or maybe way) funnier than the thing itself. Still, it’s not worse than the last three or so sketches of the episode.

If you want to think of this as art, good on you. If you just like the idea of Dave Chappelle being a snobby-ass swan rubbing his ballet in a duck’s face, well— maybe better on you.