The Rundown: The George Washington ‘SNL’ Sketch Is Juuuuust About Perfect

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

I have watched the George Washington sketch from last week’s SNL maybe eight times since it aired. I’ve sent it to everyone I know. I sent it to one person twice because they didn’t respond right away and I forgot I sent it and got a little excited. I bet I watch it again this weekend. I bet I watch it when I paste the link below this paragraph, which I am going to do riiiiiiiight now.

Watch it if you haven’t. Watch it again if you have. It’s very good.

See See how good that is I promise I won’t over-examine why and how it’s good. I won’t do that to you. I might do it a little, though. It just takes such a simple little premise (the American system of weights and measures is silly and nonsensical) and takes it to deeply absurd levels, which is already a recipe for a good sketch. And it has Kenan Thompson doing Kenan faces, which has never been anything but delightful. It’s just really good.

Esther Zuckerman at The Atlantic wrote a nice thing about it, too. Listen to Esther.

What followed was an extended riff on the U.S.’s choice to abandon the metric system—and, by extension, a parody of the American vision of liberty. “I dream that one day our proud nation will measure weights in pounds, and that 2,000 pounds shall be called a ‘ton,’” Washington said. When a soldier played by Bowen Yang asked, “And what will 1,000 pounds be called, sir,” Bargatze deadpanned, “Nothing.” As Bargatze’s Washington waxed poetic about various bizarre American measurements, such as “rulers with two sets of numbers: inches on one side, centimeters on the other,” that “won’t line up and never will,” another soldier (Kenan Thompson) chimed in, asking, “And the slaves, sir, what of them” Washington ignored the question. The beat landed potently, in part because Bargatze played the general as a slightly dim everyman whose priorities would influence the new nation.

This brings me to the other thing: Nate Bargatze is so good as Washington in this sketch. He’s a great standup comic, so it’s not shocking that he understands things like timing and delivery, and yes, this is where I drop the link to his monologue, which I have also watched a number of times this week…

— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) October 29, 2023

… but there’s also a bigger point to be made here. I understand why SNL sometimes has to chase Cultural Relevance with its hosting selections, why every now and then the show reaches for someone Very Famous who might not have experience with sketch comedy. These are the things that keep the show relevant with casual viewers and mentioned on daytime talk shows and it’s all really fine. I get it. The sausage has to get made.

But there is something to be said for trotting out a lesser-known entity and giving them some truly weird toys to play with and letting a little magic happen. Magic like this sketch. I can’t even remember the last sketch I enjoyed this much. I think I’m going to watch it again. And I might send it to that buddy of mine a third time. You know, just to be safe.

Matthew Perry died last weekend. You already knew that. The news has been everywhere. It’s been kind of strange for a lot of us to process, mostly because, like, I don’t think we really grasp how popular Friends was when it was airing on Thursday nights in the 1990s. Something like 20 million people watched every week. That’s, like, 10 percent of the entire country at the time. Sometimes it was more. The episode that aired after the Super Bowl was watched by double that. You could walk up to a total stranger and be like “Joey is at it again” and people would know what you meant. It was a different time in a lot of ways.

The whole thing just made me… sad. Very sad. Perry had famous struggles with substances in his past and seemed to be fighting hard to get past that, but he was also, more importantly, just super talented. The Chandler Bing of it all became a caricature over time as most wildly popular things do (could we BE any more predictable as a society), but the fact that it got that popular in the first place says a lot about Matthew Perry’s performance.

My colleague Mike Ryan wrote a really nice thing this week about all of it and how sad it is.

Matthew Perry has been a constant part of our lives for almost 30 years now. Friends debuted in September of 1994 and seemingly never went away. It’s hard to explain, now, what a cultural force it was. I was in college when Friends debuted and Thursday night was the big bar night at Mizzou (I assume this translates to all colleges, especially Big XII — at the time — state schools) and people would not leave their televisions until the entire NBC Thursday lineup was completed, after ER. And the bars closed at 1 am, which didn’t leave a lot of time, so that’s how important these shows were. It’s always weird watching a new show, especially a sitcom, as we are thrust into these people’s lives that we are supposed to care about and like. I will never forget the moment the show hooked me when Chandler asked Ross, “Could you want her more” Ross answers, “Who” To which Chandler sarcastically says, “Dee, the sarcastic sister from What’s Happening.” That’s a clever line, just esoteric enough that a lot of people will get the reference at the time (probably not now, but Dee was sooooo sarcastic), but not everyone will. I was hooked and Perry did the hooking.

I don’t know, man. I don’t have too much to add to that. I’m not great at articulating bummers. So, instead of doing that, or trying and flailing, I’ll just post this clip I watched again this week.

Rest in peace, buddy.

Good news and bad news on the Guy Fieri beat this week. Bad first, just to get it out of the way.

Remember how Guy Fieri was going to officiate Kristen Stewart’s wedding How she joked about it and Guy Fieri was like “hell yeah” but serious about it How all of this happened