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Planning New York

Saturday Night Live2024Season 50Episode 15
Saturday Night LiveSNL
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

Two explorers looking out over an empty Manhattan in 1620 sketch a city plan that predicts every confusing street, wayward subway line and smelly summer New York will ever have.

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Community rating

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The premise

Here’s the bit.

From the crow's nest of their ship off Manhattan in 1620, two explorers decide the island deserves a city that is simply too much of everything, and start drawing one up. Each idea builds on the last and lands on a real New York quirk: chaotic streets downtown that abruptly give way to a numbered grid, an avenue sequence that keeps skipping Fourth, a diagonal Broadway that leaves triangles they insist on calling squares, every tree packed into one big rectangle in the middle, and subway tunnels whose lines wander wherever they like. They agree the residents should be rude and the summers should smell, then briefly toy with a harmonious melting pot before deciding everyone should feud from their own neighbourhoods instead. Their finished map dissolves into the modern skyline.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 2

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

But then listen, we call the triangles squares.

It's there. It's central. We know where it is.

And you figure out where they go. That's on you. That's your problem.

ScriptEnglish · 47 turns

Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.

  1. 00:06

    Speaker 1 ?

    Can I say something?

  2. 00:07

    Speaker 2 ?

    Of course.

  3. 00:08

    Speaker 1 ?

    This is a really nice island. I honestly think we could do a city here.

  4. 00:12

    Speaker 2 ?

    Yeah? Like a big city?

  5. 00:13

    Speaker 1 ?

    Huge. A city that's just, like, too much. Too much everything. And crazy.

  6. 00:18

    Speaker 2 ?

    Okay. I'm intrigued.

  7. 00:19

    Speaker 1 ?

    I'm thinking that down at the bottom, the streets are just chaos.

  8. 00:23

    Speaker 2 ?

    Ooh, like London.

  9. 00:24

    Speaker 1 ?

    Exactly.

  10. 00:25

    Speaker 2 ?

    Let me write some of this down. I love it.

  11. 00:26

    Speaker 1 ?

    So it's crazy at the bottom, but then randomly a mile or two up, the streets are all perfectly straight.

  12. 00:31

    Speaker 2 ?

    They just switch? Out of nowhere?

  13. 00:32

    Speaker 1 ?

    Out of nowhere. And they have numbers. So it's like First Ave, Second Ave, Third Ave.

  14. 00:37

    Speaker 2 ?

    Fourth Ave.

  15. 00:38

    Speaker 1 ?

    No. Lexington.

  16. 00:40

    Speaker 2 ?

    And then Fourth Ave.

  17. 00:42

    Speaker 1 ?

    No. Park Ave. Then Madison Ave.

  18. 00:46

    Speaker 2 ?

    Then Fourth Ave?

  19. 00:48

    Ave.

  20. 00:50

    Speaker 2 ?

    Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You are on one right now. So no Fourth Ave.

  21. 00:56

    Speaker 1 ?

    What if there was a big road, like a Broadway, that went diagonal across the whole thing?

  22. 01:01

    Speaker 2 ?

    Genius.

  23. 01:02

    Speaker 1 ?

    And I love that because there would just be a bunch of random triangles everywhere. Right? But then listen we call the triangles squares.

  24. 01:09

    Speaker 2 ?

    Oh, so we call them like Times Square, Herald Square, whatever

  25. 01:13

    Speaker 1 ?

    But they're triangles.

  26. 01:14

    Speaker 2 ?

    Now here's something we should discuss trees. What do you think? Let's say it together. One, two, three

  27. 01:19

    Put them all in the middle.

  28. 01:21

    Speaker 1 ?

    Yes, all the nature goes in a big rectangle in the middle of the city. It's there It's central. We know where it is.

  29. 01:25

    Speaker 2 ?

    Question. How do people get around?

  30. 01:28

    Speaker 1 ?

    Random idea Tunnels.

  31. 01:29

    Speaker 2 ?

    Ooh

  32. 01:30

    Speaker 1 ?

    And I know they're not invented yet, but trains go in the tunnels

  33. 01:33

    Speaker 2 ?

    and they just go where the streets go

  34. 01:37

    Speaker 1 ?

    No! They do their own thing. Some go this way, one of them just splits in half. One comes in from over there, hello. And you figure out where they go. That's on you. That's your problem. Write that down.

  35. 01:47

    Speaker 2 ?

    Okay. Wild pitch, everyone who lives in the city is an ass .

  36. 01:50

    Speaker 1 ?

    Yes. My turn?

  37. 01:51

    Speaker 2 ?

    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  38. 01:51

    Speaker 1 ?

    It sometimes just smells like piss.

  39. 01:53

    Speaker 2 ?

    Yes, in the summer it always smells like piss.

  40. 01:54

    Speaker 1 ?

    Literal same brain.

  41. 01:55

    Speaker 2 ?

    Inspired. Amazing. I also think, I don't know, maybe it's a city where everyone is welcome.

  42. 02:01

    Speaker 1 ?

    And everyone has a little bit of their own culture.

  43. 02:03

    Speaker 2 ?

    And that's what makes it great.

  44. 02:05

    Speaker 1 ?

    because it's a place where all the people in the world live in harmony

  45. 02:10

    Speaker 2 ?

    no they all hate each other they all live in their own little neighborhoods and it's constant problems

  46. 02:15

    Speaker 1 ?

    yeah stop better

  47. 02:17

    Speaker 2 ?

    I really think we could do a really nice city here

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

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