How Is Marcello Hernandez as a Stand Up Comedian?

Marcello Hernandez, who may or may not have gotten married over the holidays, debuted his first stand-up special, American Boy, on Netflix this week. It’s the inaugural hour from the SNL cast member and, while it’s relatively low-stakes, it’s also infinitely better than the last two Netflix stand-up specials I watched, neither of which were even worth writing about (Ricky Gervais’s outrageously unfunny one, and a Tom Segura special that seemed to have no interest in attempting actual comedy).

American Boy is largely about growing up in an immigrant household. Hernandez talks a lot of s*** about his mother, but it’s clearly rooted in affection - she introduces him at the start of the special - and despite the “beatings” (“she never hit me hard, but she hit me a lot”) and the psychological warfare, Hernandez comes across as deeply appreciative of his upbringing.

It’s also obvious how influential his mother has been on both his worldview and his comedy. He opens with a solid bit about how his mom refused to let him have ADD (even though he very clearly does), a refrain he circles back to later when discussing depression (“depression has to be earned”). There are lighter jokes about growing up in a house full of women, the labor they put into presenting themselves for men, and one of the rare period bits a male comedian can deliver without sounding sexist. There’s also a lot of dancing, and a lot of talk about dancing.

The strongest material contrasts Hernandez’s upbringing with that of the white classmates he met in college, culminating in a fantastically funny bit about how differently his mother raised him compared to how Bob Saget raised his kids on Full House. Hernandez jokes that D.J. Tanner would have been much better off with his mom, who understands only two forms of discipline: hitting you or destroying something you love. To be clear, this is not “call child protective services” hitting, although there is a spectacular CPS bit in the special.

While Hernandez mostly steers clear of politics, he closes with a sharp run on the absurdity of white Americans finding Latino immigrants “scary.” The most illegal thing they do, he notes, is work illegal jobs no one else wants; the crimes they commit are the “fun” kind; and, tellingly, Hollywood makes “movies” about crimes committed by Latino people but “documentaries” about the unsettling crimes committed by white people.

I understand the appeal and popularity of Hernandez on SNL, even if his shtick can sometimes feel like it’s wearing thin. But I genuinely appreciated American Boy for offering a broader perspective and digging into the context that often fuels his SNL characters. It may be a lighthearted hour overall, but it’s also more thoughtful and funnier than I expected.