We interrupt this chronicling of Conor McGregor's every movement to bring you news that, unfortunately, the Americans are at it again.
Saturday Night Live is television's equivalent of Arsenal: it has produced reams of amazing talent -Larry David, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell - without ever really working very well as an entity in itself.
National Treasure Saoirse Ronan appeared on the show this weekend, to which the long-running show responded by finding their inner diddly-dee and chucking out as many Irish stereotypes as they could. The central conceit seems to be that an Aer Lingus pilot likes to surround himself with dogs in the cock(-er spaniel?)pit. (Is this offensive? We don't know).
It opens with a lengthy gag about the word Aer Lingus sounds like, and then moves on to a customer complaint about a flight delay (the flight is going from Dublin to Cork via New York). We are told that the delay is a dog with sad eyes (presumably spotted by Kay Burley) blithely sitting on the runway. His morose, doggy disposition is assigned to his having "the soul of Oscar Wilde". Already it's clear that this is much too unimportant to take seriously. The dog is later given a typically Wildean name: Muppet.
The accents consist of actors grinding their teeth together in an empathetic nod to what the rest of us are doing.
The captain is clearly given a fucking Scottish accent, passports are described as pamphlets as if Irish people treated air travel like a polemical political debate from the Enlightenment, and there is also a gag about the in-flight menu consisting of nothing but potatoes. And in a panic to deliver a punchline in the absence of a joke, it ends with "Meabh getting her fiddle out".
The tagline on the Youtube video is "The staff (Saoirse Ronan, Cecily Strong) of an Aer Lingus flight reminds passengers not to make the obvious joke", and so committed were the writers to their own idea, they didn't make any jokes at all.
Here it is.
The reaction has been....unkind.
The Brits occasionally claim Saoirse Ronan, but they never put her through that Aer Lingus sketch on SNL. Let’s never speak of it again.
— 🥃Donald Clarke🎥 (@DonaldClarke63) December 3, 2017
Oh dear @nbcsnl was supposed to be an Irish celebration with @U2 & Saoirse Ronan on last night, but this is one of the worst sketches to date. Not funny, and the accents??? #SNL https://t.co/HeaaPJawCN via @YouTube
— Caitriona Perry (@CaitrionaPerry) December 3, 2017
Can we all be clear about something because twitter seems to be getting it’s knickers in a twist again...that #SNL sketch last night with Saoirse Ronan on an @AerLingus flight was NOT insulting.
It was just utterly shit.— Daragh Keany (@DaraghKeany) December 3, 2017
What a crock of shit. #SNL must have had some shit on Saoirse Ronan for her to agree to this hatchet job. Also, if there were dogs running around on @AerLingus flights I'd probably fly a lot more. https://t.co/gk4MFowqJl
— Conor Higgins (@AskHiggins) December 3, 2017
The Aer Lingus sketch on Saturday Night Live is definitely in with a chance to win the award for best comedy sketch of 1962. #SNL
— Stephen McNeice (@maccytothedee) December 3, 2017
See Also: The 5 Best Irish Accents By Foreigners In Irish History
