SNL: Usain Bolt is fast, but is he funny?

SNL: Usain Bolt joined a parody of the vice presidential debate on SNL. In the sketch, Paul Ryan, claimed he (not Usain Bolt) won the 100-meter race at the London Olympics

|
REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
Jamaican Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt shows off his gold medal during an event at the Nissan Motor Co's headquarters in Yokohama, south of Tokyo October 11, 2012.

 "Saturday Night Live" parodied the vice presidential debate with a little help from the world's fastest man.

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt dropped by the NBC sketch show's mock debate after Taran Killam, playing Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, claimed he won the 100-meter race at the London Olympics. Ryan has been criticized for exaggerating his marathon time.

"Ryan" then asks his "training partner," Bolt, to verify his claims.

Bolt won the 100 meters at the London Olympics with a time of 9.63 seconds, a new Olympic record.

"SNL" had fun with the vice presidential candidates following Thursday's contentious debate. While President Barack Obama and Romney's first debate didn't offer as much obvious satire, the show happily skewered Vice President Joe Biden and Ryan.

Jason Sudeikis, as Biden, called himself "Big Daddy Joe" and insisted he was "monkey strong" unlike his younger foe, whom he referred to as "shark eyes." Killam played Ryan with an Eddie Munster-like widow's peak.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to SNL: Usain Bolt is fast, but is he funny?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1015/SNL-Usain-Bolt-is-fast-but-is-he-funny
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe