You're tuned to the good stuff
Cut for Time: Bruce Chandling and Paul Cannon on Halloween
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
Michael Che welcomes veteran New York stand-up Bruce Chandling to the Weekend Update desk for his take on Halloween. Bruce opens by mocking Che's face as a scary mask, then stumbles through trick-or-treat material about egged driveways and candy from strangers that earns nothing but silence. Hoping to turn things around, he brings on his favorite comic, the self-styled legend Paul Cannon, a grey-suited joke machine whose groan-worthy witch wordplay and observations about decorating with cobwebs actually win Che over. When Bruce tries to end the segment, Paul insists on squeezing in his vampire bit, and Bruce's own attempt at the same joke dies. Stung, Bruce drops the act and quietly asks Che why he laughs at Paul and not him, concluding it must be because he is ugly, and drifts into a story about blaming his looks for the death of his childhood dog while Paul complains that he is killing the room. Bruce finally recycles Paul's witch pun as his closing line, to Paul's loud indignation, before the anchors wrap up the show.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 4
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
You can never tell which witch is actually a witch.
I actually like that wordplay. That was pretty good.
I got a whole hour about vampires. They suck!
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Cut for time from the October 22, 2016 episode hosted by Tom Hanks; NBC released the segment online the following day.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:00
Michael Che
-...Halloween is just around the corner. And here with his unique take on the holiday is veteran New York stand-up comedian Bruce Chandling.
- 00:06
Bruce Chandling
Ooh! Hey! Nice to be here. And by the way, love the scary mask.
- 00:17
Michael Che
I think you know this is just my face, Bruce.
- 00:19
Bruce Chandling
Yeah, I'm just playing. I'm just playing. But I do love Halloween. Of course, it's all about the trick-or-treating, right? You heard about this? You seen this? And you don't want to get tricked, because, you know, these kids today, they pull off some pretty nasty pranks. Throwing toilet paper on the trees, eggs on the driveway. You know, most people get mad, but a guy like me, I'm just thinking, you just saved me a trip to the grocery store. Oh, -"Oh, boy." You got your treats. Right, Michael? And kids love them, don't they? I mean, this is a holiday based entirely on a bunch of little kids going to a stranger's house to get candy. Now, I don't know about you, but the last time a stranger offered me some free candy, I ended up sucking on a very peculiar-tasting lollipop.
- 01:07
Michael Che
-"All right, Bruce, please get through this quickly."
- 01:11
Bruce Chandling
-"Oh, no, baby. We're just getting started, daddy-o."
- 01:15
Michael Che
-"What do you mean, we?"
- 01:16
Bruce Chandling
-"Ladies and gentlemen, you see them all around town. One of my favorite comics, the legend, Paul Cannon!"
- 01:23
Paul Cannon
-"Wow! Hey, what is this, wow, hey, wow, This is really interesting. Usually, I stand up with a mic, but now you got me sitting down with a mic, Mark Cha! Hey, can I call you that?
- 01:40
Michael Che
Yeah, man, go ahead.
- 01:41
Bruce Chandling
Alright. Oh, I cannot wait for this. Hey, hit it with the good stuff, Pauly.
- 01:45
Paul Cannon
Alright, sure. Hey, hey, hey, here's the question. Every girl wants to dress up like a witch. Let's be honest. You can never tell which witch is actually a witch, which is why I'm asking, which witch is which? I mean, hey!
- 02:00
Oh, no!
- 02:03
Michael Che
Alright, wait a minute. I actually like that wordplay. That was pretty good. That's good. That's good.
- 02:11
Bruce Chandling
which? Which one's which? I'm just kidding.
- 02:15
Michael Che
Not bad. Not bad.
- 02:18
Paul Cannon
Hey, what's the deal with cobwebs? You spend all year trying to clear them out of the house, and then one day you're like, hey, let's put them all back up. It's like saying, hey, everyone, come over for Thanksgiving. I just put some dirt on the floor. I'm being hired! I don't want to know!"
- 02:39
Michael Che
Yeah, I never even thought of that, man. That's so true.
- 02:44
Oh.
- 02:47
Bruce Chandling
Hey, what's that? Thanks for having us, Michael.
- 02:51
Michael Che
Oh, wait, wait, Bruce, Bruce, all right. I want to hear him finish his material, man.
- 02:54
Paul Cannon
No, hey, hey, I got a whole hour about vampires. They suck!!"
- 03:02
Bruce Chandling
-"Hey, Hey, hey, I got... Hey. Hey. Yeah. Hey, hey, hey, yeah.
- 03:09
Bruce Chandling
I got a whole day about vampires! Because vampires suck! But you don't see me brag about it, so...
- 03:24
Michael Che
Are you cool, Bruce?
- 03:25
Bruce Chandling
I guess I was just thinking maybe you would laugh at my jokes the way that you laugh at his. But then I remembered, you'd never do that because... because you think I look ugly.
- 03:59
Paul Cannon
Whoa, Bruce! -"You're breaking the room down, man. Come on! I was killing up here."
- 04:05
Bruce Chandling
Please let me finish, Paul. When I was a little kid, my dog died, and and it was my fault. And the reason my dog died... It was because I was ugly.
- 04:26
Michael Che
Come on, man. Now you're just lying.
- 04:29
Bruce Chandling
I guess the only question I have now is... Rich WITCH, is rich! rich, rich is it?
- 04:39
Paul Cannon
Hey, that's my job. You see what he did? He took my...
- 04:41
Michael Che
Bruce Channeling And Paul Cannon, everybody!
- 04:45
Michael Che
But we're gonna have to have Michael Che.
- 04:47
Colin Jost
I'm Colin Jensen. Today was good in front of everybody.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from Saturday Night Live.
