SNL Video: Dog Acting School Is a Beautiful Disaster
Every comedian knows the advice of W.C. Fields: never work with children, or animals. It’s a good rule of thumb. They’re both unpredictable, and there’s every danger that they’ll steal the scene from you. Fortunately, Saturday Night Live does not care one bit, so… bring on the dogs!
The Dog Acting School Commercial features guest host Ana de Armas and Chloe Fineman as a pair of cartoonish acting coaches that, honestly, wouldn’t stand out in a crowd of the real thing. Their pitch is they can train your dogs to act but, intentionally or otherwise, almost none of the canines on hand do what they’re told.
The great thing about animal sketches is that, if they go well, everybody laughs, and if they go horribly, everybody laughs. A human forgetting their lines is dire, but a puppy doing the same is gold.
You do hope that the first couple of animals, at least, will behave to set up the premise. But right off the bat, the first dog – an enormous golden retriever – ventures off-script, burying his head behind the table (presumably going for snacks hidden there). He’s almost the size of poor Fineman who’s trying to get him in front of the camera, and that goes about as well as you’d expect. “Henry’s doing a little improv!” she says as he noses his way past her.
They cut to a close-up as de Armas asks him to look shocked. Someone’s down below to emote with a pair of fake paws, but they don’t get them up in time. The paws get in there for the next gag, but who cares? Henry is adorable!
After a sexually charged (or possibly exploitative, or maybe just silly) segment with Coco the pug, Romeo is out. Fineman tries to get him to do their “patented Lady and the Tramp technique,” which presumably involves the dog taking a bite from the mouthful of noodles hanging out of her mouth. But unlike Henry, Romeo has zero desire for pasta, forcing Fineman to chase him around the stage as he tries to escape. The failure of the bit arguably works better than if it went as scripted.
Watch the sketch above, then grade this weekend’s episode!
This wasn’t funny. Most of those dogs looked scared. Getting laughs off dogs’ discomfort isn’t right. This made me cringe.
The way Chloe Fineman was pushing that pug puppy was terrible.
So… gently scooting a puppy across a smooth surface for 6 inches is “terrible.”
You should watch it again. She was not “gently scooting” anything….she was pushing a scared, young animal that didn’t want to be there.
Yes that puppy was terrified I felt so bad for it I couldn’t believe she was doing that for laughs
Quite often, I find the dog’s appear scared in these skits — probably because they are not used to a loud audience, SNL — it is time to cut the dog sketches. They rarely work and I think you just traumatize the dogs.
Thank you
What a bunch of weirdos. The dogs were fine. They had obviously had done well in the dress rehearsal, and shied away for the live. The dog playing ‘Romeo’, again, obviously went for the noodles at first. Maybe she had too many during the live, but whatever it was, he backed off last minute.
But, please, make sure to write PETA and ASPCA.
The only weirdo here is you, for thinking that the dogs acted any differently during dress than the live. That makes no sense whatsoever.
“She had too many during the live, and then he backed off” 🤣 What are you even talking about?
So it’s “Whiskers Are We” for dogs. Got it.
The Easter SNL April 8 was EXCELLENT with Trump’s take on the Last Supper and the last tape of woke commentators speaking hopefully about Trump failures. Excellent!
Live animals are always a guarantee for cast breakups as they have to ad-lib their way out of the situation. Cecily was a master of that.
You need rock bands, country bands, christian bands. Just a switch to variety of Music. The Show is great but you need to mix up the Music gendre’s Really.
This was horrible. All the dogs were nervous…a couple of them were terrified.
The animal trainer they rented them from has never given them attention or socialization of any kind.
They are obviously kept locked in kennels unless needed for a shoot.
Boos to SNL for perpetrating this cruel business and subjecting these poor dogs
to this obvious scary scenario.