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ABBA Christmas
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
In a paid advertisement, a spokesperson promotes ABBA Christmas, a supposedly unreleased 1978 holiday album by the Swedish pop group, played by Kate McKinnon, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Bowen Yang. Clips show the band in garish festive costumes reworking their own hits into Christmas songs: a Dancing Queen-style tribute to Santa, a nativity number that still insists everyone is 17, and a gloomy Chiquitita spin about a depressed snow figure. The four sing nose to nose while facing different directions in their signature pose, and the pitch closes by admitting that one song the band translated from Swedish themselves went badly wrong, cueing a kangaroo-themed take on Waterloo.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 5
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Santa Claus, your life's a dream / You're at the dance, you're 17 / Coming down the chimney straight to the dance floor / You're 13 plus four!
That's right—the characters are mostly on the dance floor, and they're all 17.
Barbecue / Made it for Christmas from kangaroo
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph also joined host Kate McKinnon in her monologue and in the "Tampon Farm" music video in the same episode. TVLine later included the sketch in its list of the 15 funniest sketches of season 49.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:00
The following is a paid advertisement.
- 00:03
Spokesperson
You know them, you know them. It's Swedish pop supergroup ABBA. They're the Fleetwood Mac of cold weather, and they're the number one band alphabetically of all time. You can't get enough of their music. You loved Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again, and the prequel, Mama. And you love how their hits like Dancing Queen make you feel young, sweet, and 17. And now, being released for the first time, It's their 1978 Christmas album, Abba Christmas, with songs like Santa Queen.
- 00:35
Santa Claus, your life's a dream. You're at the dance, you're 17. Coming down the chimney, straight to the dance floor, you're 13 plus
- 00:51
Spokesperson
Or their take on a way in a manger called Who's That Baby?
- 00:56
It's the Baby Jesus. Little baby Jay, your birthday's today. Shake your tambourine, cause you're 17. The wise men pray and let you give a twirl. All the dance floors saying that we love you, girl, cause you're 17.
- 01:21
Spokesperson
That's right, the characters are mostly on the dance floor, and they're all 17. But not all the tunes are happy. Take a listen to their wintry take on Cheeky Tita, Frosty Tita.
- 01:33
Wow, everyone, look. Look there. It's Frosty Tita. Wow, she's more beautiful than ever.
- 01:40
She's smiling, but we know the truth. The truth is, she's super-depressed!
- 01:48
Falsitita, you are so sad Don't girl, you're failing bad Seventeen and don't have a boyfriend Please so big, you're a spider man Please try not to cry It's tears are melting your eyes all.
- 02:11
Spokesperson
It's ABBA Christmas, featuring 15 brand-new Christmas classics, as well as 85 holiday remakes of their existing songs. Like their Fa La La number, sung with their signature, standing close, facing different directions.
- 02:24
On
- 02:42
Spokesperson
Or their holiday take on the guttural favorite, Knowing Me, Knowing You.
- 02:56
ABBA
- 03:01
Spokesperson
ABBA translated the songs from Swedish to English themselves, and they all turned out perfect, except for one that didn't.
- 03:08
So Didn't So give yourself
- 03:26
Spokesperson
give yourselves the gift of ABBA Christmas, perfect for everyone from mothers to their gay sons. Take it away, ABBA.
- 03:36
La-da-da-da! Fa-di-da-da-da! Fa-da! Fa! Fa-di-di-da! Fa-di-di-da!
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from across the archive.
