Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | November 10, 2025
Part of growing up watching Saturday Night Live reruns on Comedy Central was that I was exposed to pop culture jokes I had zero reference for. Some things were still relevant, like wave after wave of jokes about the O.J. Simpson trial. But then, I’d see a sketch about George H. W. Bush puking at a Japanese banquet and be lost entirely. That moment has its own Wikipedia page, so it’s not as if it didn’t retain its relevance, but, at the time, I was pretty lost.
It’s an aspect of a unique issue SNL has. There needs to be a mix of jokes that are both evergreen and topical. They’re continued staying power lies in the former, but the latter keeps them hip with the cool cats out there. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s pretty astounding. Also, you’ll occasionally find a sketch that feels so of the moment that it may not even make sense in five to ten years, and that’s what we got this week with Beauty & Mr. Beast.
The setup is pretty straightforward. It’s Beauty & the Beast, but the Beast in question is billionaire YouTuber Mr. Beast, and the subjects in his castle are competing for various sums of money (some big, some small). The sketch is loaded with references not only to Mr. Beast’s insane challenges, but also to the practice of using YouTube in general. The videos are eight hours, and his pictures are modeled after ridiculous YouTube thumbnails.
YouTube has changed significantly since its inception. People like Mr. Beast learned to use the algorithm to their advantage and racked up millions of viewers in the process. But who knows if the platform will be the same in a decade? This sketch could end up being a strange time capsule about videos that are overly long and pictures with people smiling bizarrely in an attempt to lure in children.
Sometimes, that’s easier to identify. I can safely say that this sketch may not make sense to people who turn eighteen in 2035. However, can you imagine showing any of the David Spade-led video store guy sketches of the early ’90s to someone who turned 18 this year? You think they’ll understand that adult videos used to have their own section along with larger packaging? It’ll make as much sense as a rotary phone, and that’s fascinating.
In ten years, Ben Marshall’s turn as the titular Beast may not land as well, but it’s pretty spot on. Yes, he gets to mimic the personality of someone who has no personality, but that’s a challenge in and of itself. Marshall nails the strange YouTuber voice people put on that makes them sound like newscasters who weren’t properly trained. It makes them sound like a computer loosely impersonating a human being.
I spoke about this last week, but one of the strengths of this season of SNL has been identifying what certain cast members are good at. This sketch feels perfect for Marshall, and giving him the spotlight feels rare, given that it’s his first season as a full cast member. Yes, he was in Please Don’t Destroy and has been featured on SNL before, but he has gotten slotted in pretty regularly, in lead and supporting roles, since joining the main cast. It helps that he’s pretty adaptable, but he’s also quite good.
It’s even more fun to see him share the stage with Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang, who help bring this bit to the next level. They’re perfectly at home dressed in ridiculous costumes and singing Disney parodies. The duo is not doing too much, but fitting the tone, the roles, and showing why they’re so reliable. While they certainly have a few memorable lines, everything they’re doing is in service of the bit.
Nikki Glaser does a great job, but she gets almost nothing to do here. She doesn’t need to necessarily, but they only give her one real joke. That’s probably my biggest complaint with the sketch, aside from being introduced to two sumo wrestlers who we are told are “greased up,” but are clearly bone dry when they arrive. You couldn’t have given them a quick spritz, guys?? C’mon!
So, while I definitely thought this was funny, most of my enjoyment stems from how weirdly of its time it feels. Beauty & the Beast ain’t going anywhere, but who knows what Mr. Beast will be up to in ten years. What will YouTube be? Will video thumbnails look less ridiculous in a decade? Could all of this feel like a cave painting by the time the next iPhone comes out? That’s that SNL dance, baby.
One late caveat, however, is that the sketch has been accused of plagiarism by Studio C, a family-friendly sketch series produced by BYUtv in Provo, Utah. The two sketches have a similar setup, although they go in wildly different directions. It’d be easy to chalk it up to a coincidence — the idea is low-hanging fruit — except that Studio C’s version aired in the same week, which at least raises an eyebrow. On the other hand, Studio C’s sketch has not yet been released on the Internet, and it’s hard to imagine anyone on the SNL writing staff watching a family-friendly sketch series on BYU TV.
