Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | May 11, 2026
I’ve certainly debased myself to get a laugh (or, ya know, attention) in my life. I once collected the hair from my head after my mom shaved it, glued it to my face, and wore it to school the next day (something, you’ll imagine, a bunch of eighth-grade kids were super chill about). In high school, I once took my shirt off during a hypnotist show because I knew my sizeable rolls would elicit the necessary chuckles (and I wasn’t really hypnotized). Once, during a screening of The Apple I was hosting, I stripped down to a sequined, colored dance belt that did not fit well to get a rise out of the audience (okay, a lot of this is me having body image issues).
While I am certainly a “Yes, and” kind of person who is happy to do what is required to get laughs, I still have my limits, and I genuinely think that a bunch of people doing spit take after spit take on my face would be one. I have twin five-year-olds, so I’m no stranger to being at least accidentally spit on, but having someone like, let’s say Matt Damon, load up their cheeks with Greek yogurt to spit into my eyes and nose is not something I would like to have happen to me, laughs or not. So, luckily, Mikey Day exists.
A new SNL sketch called Godzilla Movie dropped on SNL this weekend. I don’t know what I was expecting from the picture, but it certainly was not what we got. Damon plays a high-level Naval officer who enters a command room to get updates about a new issue: something enormous is traveling under the water. It’s standard Godzilla movie stuff, except with each update, Damon spits a new drink or food into Mikey Day’s face. By the end, every cast member in the scene is spitting on Day, at one point, all at once.
Day has been a valued member of this cast for years now, whether he’s leading a scene or playing a supporting role with only one or two lines. You can kind of pop him into any scenario, and he’s always on board with whatever tone is being achieved. He can be an excellent straight man, but is also capable of being as silly as anyone else on the cast. His presence can often even ground a sketch, making him incredibly necessary, so it’s very funny to me that they spent this whole sketch just spitting on him.
There’s an element to this, as well, that makes it feel similar to the Ryan Gosling sketch intended to make him and Ashley Padilla break. This feels like it could have a similar purpose, but, instead, you’re watching Day hold strong as new, more viscous liquids are spat on him. Not only does he refrain from breaking (save for a smile or two), but he even nails the moment where he pleads with everyone to stop, making it feel genuine and, again, grounding an absurd scenario.
Matt Damon is also pretty perfect here. I think he’s always understood what can make him funny in a sketch, and using him as a bespectacled authority figure who is very serious is excellent use of him, and pretty impressive given that he was a hooting and hollering Brett Kavanaugh just minutes earlier. Damnon isn’t going to stretch very far outside of the boxes that he fits in, but he understands them very well, and that is a gift in and of itself.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that I watched this one with the five-year-olds I mentioned earlier, and they had an absolute blast. I don’t pull them into that world too often, especially when it’s a sketch I haven’t seen before, but by the time Damon pulled out a tall glass of green juice, I rewound the video and yelled, “Boys, c’mere a minute” into the other room. I think they were a little disappointed that they didn’t see the actual Godzilla for more of the sketch, but since that thicc beast made an appearance at the end, they walked away happily.
This is another sketch that SNL has nailed me with this season that has a pretty simple premise, but that’s definitely what I like about it. You take an idea, like spitting in Mikey Day’s face, and you keep cranking it up as much as possible until it reaches its natural endpoint, and then, you have one more person spit on him just for good measure. It feels like the kind of idea that likely saved some of the writers from losing their minds at 3 AM on a Wednesday. It’s super broad, but also gross, so it might not even appeal to everyone, and I loved it.
