On March 9, “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) (1975-present) star Marcello Hernández left the SNL stage to deliver a night full of laughter and fun at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts.
Hernández joined the cast of SNL in 2022 and was the show’s first Generation Z cast member. Since then, he has quickly established himself as a serious contender in iconic skits and sagas such as “Domingo” and “Protective Mom.” He is also a frequent presence on the “Weekend Update” segment led by co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che.
The self-claimed “baby face” and “bad guy” brought a vibrant energy to Staller Center, keeping the crowd excited and entertained from the first minute to the very end of the two-hour show.
In true Seawolf spirit, Hernández opened with a series of roasts about Stony Brook. He claimed to have not known where he was and that he had to Google the campus, and shared what his research led him to: a depressing campus in the middle of nowhere with bad food and an even worse plumbing system. As every incoming Stony Brook freshman is warned, “avoid Roosevelt [Community].”
He was met with rounds of applause and overwhelming agreement by the audience.
Throughout the show, Hernández was lively and engaged; it was clear he was just as excited to be there as the audience was. His energy and passion were infectious and off the charts, wasting no opportunity to acquaint with the audience and delve into the struggles of life. He didn’t hesitate in holding back on his enthusiasm and physicality in his deliverance, creating a fun, unforgettable night.
He referenced his short king and why men are depressed “Weekend Update” sketches, alleging that tall guys have it easier than shorter men as it is socially acceptable for a woman of any height to want a tall guy only and not the other way around. He joked that tall guys don’t need to have any interesting personality traits: “His name is Kyle and he can’t read, and all the girls are like, ‘aww, we’ll teach you!’” On the other hand, he cited that if a shorter man is too happy or sad, they become the dwarfs from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937).
Next, he did a bit contrasting how men and women support each other. He discussed how men are not good at supporting each other, sharing an anecdote about how when he called his friend after a recent breakup, his friend “told him to call him back when he was feeling better.” At a later hangout, when he wanted his friend to take a photo of him for Instagram, his friend refused to look as he took the shot.
He compared this to how women support women, bringing up how women post “the craziest compliments” on social media and his experiences from growing up with his mother and sister. Not even he could keep a straight face as he went through the plights of women: having to connect the buttons of shirts that connect underneath, casually going through upper-lip and eyebrow waxes — “all women have the mustache!” — and “the blood that they feel! It speaks for them! And they bluetooth!”
As the audience roared in laughter, he concluded his segment by stating that guys should pay on dates.
“Because after all that then they’re broke! You should pay, and if you don’t want to pay then tell her, and she’ll keep the mustache and you can split the bill like men.”
Much like his SNL sketches, Hernández didn’t shy away from talking about his experiences as a first-generation immigrant.
He started strong by delving into the different antics of the two types of kids, which he labeled to be “skinny” or “chubby.” He took the audience through his times as a waterslide operator and him having a “classic skinny kid main character moment” as a child. In the spur of a moment to prevent his schoolmates from beating him up, he spread rumors that his parents let him smoke and drink every day, prompting Child Protective Services (CPS) to investigate. However, the story didn’t end there. He shared how his “moment” prevented him from being bullied, leading him to be “President of the [school] bus,” but that role derailed disastrously. He shared how terrible he felt with his parents not holding back on reminding him that he was lucky he wasn’t being punished, ending that story by sharing how he found out not too long ago that CPS never called. His sister had told their parents what he had been saying and his mother wanted to challenge who the bigger liar could be.
That was only one of the “traumas” he faced growing up. He explained how his parents had odd origin stories and how he planned to dramatize the pandemic to his children. He surveyed the audience for those who could relate to the experience of their parents beating them up for no real reason, such as when, as a child, he “sighed when [he and his mom] were leaving and she said that they needed to stop at DSW first.” He hilariously recollected how the women’s bathroom in Miami malls was a coliseum where they’d get beat to the rhythm, dancing around the stage and reenacting karate moves. He joked that not being allowed to have ADD and depression are why “Latinos are taking all the jobs,” alluding to anti-minority rhetoric that some Republicans have used.
He then segued into his anxieties surrounding airplanes; he said that he loves airports but hates airplanes. He confessed that he gets anxious the moment he sits in his seat and he hates the take-off process because pilots don’t speak for the take-off process. He referenced how pilots prepare for takeoff by saying “depart for takeoff” and announce the flight altitude and duration once the plane reaches a cruising altitude, which he claimed to be a staggering, unnecessary 30,000 miles.
In an incredibly relatable tangent, he shared how he loves when his flight’s pilot is a white man “because they lie the best” but the flight attendants to be minorities because “they represent the people, unlike white people.”
He then delved into the partying differences between Latinos and white people, dancing for the crowd as he recounted how the parties in Miami were about “dancing with the girls” while for white people, as per his observations from attending college in Ohio, were about beer. He threw himself across the stage as he shared a story about being at a party where his drunk classmates were attempting to throw a TV off the roof, protesting that they should “throw it to him instead” and that he could “most definitely catch something that expensive.”
That particular anecdote gave everyone in the audience something to laugh about.
His last bit was about Latinos’ perception in media, especially given the latest Republican rhetoric, quipping that they “do fun, crazy crime in movies” such as commandeering a “boat with drugs riding the waves with a guy in the back shooting at a helicopter while white people do creepy crime from documentaries.”
This conclusion rightfully earned him a standing ovation and several minutes of cheers and applause from the crowd.
Marcello Hernández’s show was full of heart and soul, and had a vibrancy that kept me laughing all the way back to my dorm, by my mediocre dining hall and questionably-flushing toilet.
