Charming Ramy Youssef Mines the Comedy of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts as Host of 'SNL'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 31, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 31, 2024 |

Cold Open — Trump, thinking he’s Jesus, sells his Bibles. It’s exactly what you expect. James Austin Johnson is very good, but no one wants to see him. We have to see this clown enough during the week. (Watch Here) (Score: 3 out of 10)

Ramy Youssef Monologue — Ramy is great. However, 70 percent of his monologue comes from his stand-up special, including the Michigan/Biden bit and the MAGA/South business, so it feels repetitive for anyone who watched his special last weekend. I guess if you’re on SNL, you want to go with your best material and not your newest material. (Score: 7 out of 10)

Couple Goals — In a Newlywed Game type of show, one couple says embarrassingly revealing things, and the other basically outlines a plot to kill his wife and run off with her best friend. Decent! (Score: 6 out of 10)

Please Don’t Destroy — The guys go clubbing with Ramy Youssef and Travis Scott. They get too high, while Ramy regrets wearing shorts to the dance floor. Also decent! (Score: 6.5 out of 10)

Immigrant Dad Talk Show — Ramy and SNL’s secret weapon, Marcello Hernandez, play Immigrant Dads who love their daughters no matter what they do and hate their sons, no matter what they do. And then the white Dad comes over and makes everything uncomfortable. (Score: 7 out of 10)

Pervert Victorious — The coach of a basketball team hands it over to the team captain to give a second-half pep talk about getting the image of their coach dressed as a cat in sexytime videos he accidentally sent to the group chat instead of his wife out of their head. It’s a lot. It’s OK. (Watch Here) (Score: 4 out of 10)

Ozempic for Ramadan Ad — Not so hard fasting for Ramadan now, is it? (Score: 6.5 out of 10)

Weekend Update — A good run of political jokes, mostly at Trump’s expense (but one really painful one from Che at Biden’s expense), and then “Piper Dunster” comes out with a lot of her bad TikTok takes (watch here). Sarah Sherman also comes out as Flaco’s widow after discovering from Flaco’s autopsy revealed he died with pigeon herpes. Mostly, though, it’s Sherman making fun of Colin Jost, which is always great. (Score: 7 out of 10)

DeSantis Pizza — Dismukes (obviously!) does some real bad Caruso in a skit where the detective is supposed to deliver a one-liner, but his co-workers aren’t impressed with it. Bad skit. Do not watch. (Score: 3 out of 10)

NPR’s Tiny Desk — Ramy’s band is trying to play one of NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts but the NPR intern keeps interrupting to ask him to quiet the ruckus because people are working. Bowen Yang does great NPR here in what is the Mat skit of the night. (Score: 7.5 out of 10)