Saturday Night Livebrought us into the holiday season cheer with hostsMartin ShortandSteve Martinwith musical guestBrandi Carlileand the episode was a grand ole celebration of the holidays as well as Short and Martin. It included plenty of fun looks into what we love about them as performers, but we also got to celebrate the holidays with Martin as Santa and what a sweet Santa he is! His elf Sprinkles though is a different story.
Sprinkles, who maybe sometimes goes by Pringles, is played by Short and is sitting on his knees in the sketch and this is important given what happens later in the sketch, “standing” next to Santa as he is sitting with kids and getting their Christmas present orders in. AsBowen Yangbrings in each new kid, they start to tell Martin what they want for Christmas.
The problem is that Short wants to move the list along and he doesn’t want to waste the time or give every kid every single thing they could want. It starts withChloe Finemanas she is listing all the toys she wants and it just keeps escalating with each new kid as they come in to tell Santa want they want for Christmas.
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The best part of the entire sketch is when someone is taking way too much time with Santa and Sprinkles has had enough of it and stands up, revealing Short’s actual legs with the shoes on his knees. It was genuinely funny to see him standing up and making some comment about how he’s had legs the whole time, and Santa has just never really paid attention to him. It’s all leading up to Short wanting to do speed with Martin’s Santa and the two realizing that they had to ask Yang where they could get some.
It is such a simple sketch that I personally don’t think that it would have worked if itwasn’tShort and Martin hosting because you have to have that dynamic of actors that work incredibly well together and balances the other out. It is why we love them onThe Only Murders In the Building, andit is why it works in this sketch. And any time that Martin gets to just sit and be nice to people while Short yells at him is a pretty funny one.
