Sometimes we need comedy that makes us laugh and cry, jokes rooted in feels, emotional sentimentality that also tickles the funny bone. And other times we just want to see John Mulaney wearing monkey makeup beneath his judicial robes.
This over-the-top Saturday Night Live sketch delivers on the latter. Big time. Mulaney, the show’s latest host, introduces the world to Judge Tango, a monkey who somehow became a judge. It’s a five-minute sketch that feels exactly like the kind of humor that would emerge from the brain of the Sack Lunch Bunch mastermind.
Mulaney plays his monkey business totally straight. As he sits down and introduces himself to the courtroom, he solemnly notes “no one look me in the eye, do not make any noises that I do not know.” Later, when the defense lawyer (Cecily Strong) asks to approach the bench, she pledges to do so “in a slow, deliberate way holding a birthday cake.” Judge Tango dutifully responds: “The court recognizes the shape he normally associates with treats.”
There’s five minutes of this. Five. Minutes. John Mulaney’s monkey judge is a gift.
