This past Saturday’s John Goodman–hosted Saturday Night Live was not the best episode of the season. A few bright spots (like Goodman’s “Last Call” sketch with Kate McKinnon) and one serious low point: “Three Wise Guys,” which found Goodman flanked by noted comedians Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro. It’s a spoof of the three wise men. Get it? They’re in tracksuits, but they’re on camels. The sketch was bad. How bad was it? So bad it was pitched as a sketch on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a show notorious for its awful show-within-a-show sketch ideas.
On the Christmas episode (itself deeply terrible), Tom (Nate Corddry) and Simon (D.L. Hughley) sit in on a writers meeting with Lucy (Lucy Davis) and Darius (Columbus Short, now on Scandal), where Darius pitches a sketch called “We Three Wise Guys.” He’s mostly ignored, which we now know is the correct response.
Sure, sure, the SNL version isn’t exactly characters from Goodfellas. But almost.
