The new, Kenya Barris–produced sketch series from comedy group Astronomy Club debuts on Netflix today, and while we very much loved the “Magical Negro Rehab” sketch released earlier this month, there’s another standout sketch from the first episode we’d like to bring to your attention. In the sketch, Jerah Milligan and Monique Moses play a rich Nottingham couple who catch a burglar in their home who happens to Robin Hood, played by The Other Two’s Drew Tarver. “You got some nerve! You would come in here and rob the one rich black house in Nottingham?” Milligan’s character says. “No no no, that is not what is happening here. You’re twisting my words. I give to the poor! It is a good thing that I am doing!” Tarver as Robin Hood argues. “Who are these poor people? ’Cause when we were poor and I was digging moats 8 to 8, every day, 365 days a year, I ain’t seen no white man in green tights jump around giving me no dough!” Apparently, Robin Hood’s charity doesn’t extend to “the South Side of Sherwood,” which he points out “is very dangerous after 9 p.m.! There are a lot of thieves and … Well I mean I am a thief, but I’m not that kind of thief.” “You mean like a black thief?” “Shit.”
Then, the sketch takes an unexpected twist when Robin Hood is finally joined by Little John (Ray Cordova), who discovers that the homeowners Robin Hood was planning to steal from also happened to be people he grew up with on Sherwood’s South Side. “Hey, how come we don’t see you no more?” Little John asks the couple. “Oh, well, we had to move out,” Milligan’s character responds. “Did you though? Did you? You had to move out?” “Well, I mean … You know. After 9 p.m. it’s not that safe, and the schools here are better, so.” “I guess it’s true what they say: As soon as a black man gets some moat money, he turn his back on the hood.” Thank you, Astronomy Club, for changing the way we’ll see Robin Hood and Little John forever.
