‘Saturday Night Live’ re-watch: On Drake’s episode and the ‘American Ninja Warrior’ parody

In some ways, “American Ninja Warrior” is both an easy and difficult show for “Saturday Night Live” to spoof. The obvious reason to go after it is simply a matter of brand synergy. It airs on NBC, after all, which is the same exact network as the late-night show.

Yet, there is a struggle here for relevancy given that “Ninja Warrior” only tends to air in the summer when “SNL” is off the air. Therefore, we don’t think the parody is as easy to execute, especially since you’re asking viewers to sit back and think of something that is not as easy to access in their minds as something political or based on a holiday that is taking place around that time of year.

Luckily, NBC is giving the “SNL” – “American Ninja Warrior” spoof another chance to shine courtesy of re-airing the Drake episode, and you can see that below! We do think it works even better than it did the first time now that we’ve got the show more front of mind, and the physical comedy in here from Bobby Moynihan is outstanding.

What we also love about this is something that probably did not get enough attention in the show’s first run: The pitch-perfect satire of terrible reality TV sob story packages, complete with people acting like someone taking part in a reality show is enough to inspire and change a town, when it is often just a selfish act and a way to have a good story to put on television. The fact that Moynihan’s character does the obstacle course is even more ridiculous, especially since that is something we’ve seen in various forms on the actual show.

If you do want to get some other news right now when it comes to “SNL,” including some other re-watch pieces, be sure to head over to this link! Also, sign up over at the link here to score some other news on all we cover via our CarterMatt NEwsletter. (Photo: NBC.)

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