Comedy fans are pointing out striking similarities in recent sketches from “Saturday Night Live” and BYUtv’s “Studio C.”
As first reported on news outlet LateNighter, a sketch that aired on the show on Nov. 8 bore resemblance to one that aired on “Studio C” just a few days earlier on Nov. 3. Both sketches riffed on the Disney film “Beauty and the Beast,” replacing the titular Beast with popular YouTuber MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson.
The “SNL” parody showed host Nikki Glaser as Belle and cast member Ben Marshall as a hybrid of Disney’s Beast and the YouTuber, who is known for staging elaborate challenges with huge cash prizes for contestants.
“I’m keeping her dad trapped in a dungeon for 30 days for a chance to win over $300,000,” Marshall says in the sketch. “For every pound he loses, I’ll give a Tesla to a random stranger.” Cast members Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang appear as versions of Cogsworth and Lumière.
Studio C’s sketch also had MrBeast in an old French castle staging an elaborate game show for an unwitting Belle. In the sketch, MrBeast says he’s trapped 100 servants in the castle.
“The only way they’re gonna get their human bodies back is if they make this lady fall in love with me,” he says. Progress in the game is tracked by the number of petals falling off of a rose.
While the “SNL” sketch featured Beast in full costume, Studio C opted for its MrBeast to wear a blue hoodie emblazoned with “Beast.” Instead of having Belle in her signature yellow ball gown as on “SNL,” Studio C’s version portrayed Belle in her blue dress.
Some commenters pointed out the similarities online.
“Now everyone needs to go watch the Studio C version of this skit… which happened to air 5 days before this SNL version,” one user wrote on the YouTube of the “SNL” video, while another wrote on Studio C’s video, ”I think this version works better than the SNL version because it’s a parody of Mr. Beast’s entire video style, while the SNL skit was just a movie trailer parody with Mr. Beast thrown in as a character.”
“Did #snl realize that @BYUtv’s sketch show Studio C did Beauty and Mr Beast last week?” one X user wrote.
Neither “SNL” nor BYUtv immediately responded to requests for comment.
This isn’t the first time “SNL” has been accused of copying others’ work. In 2015, for example, two people accused the show of ripping off their idea of a dating app where people settle for each other.
And in 2023, comedian Yannis Pappas said it was “hard to believe” that fellow comedian Marcello Hernandez didn’t notice the similarities between one of his “SNL” characters and a persona Pappas has portrayed for years.
“I have been doing stand-up comedy for two decades now, so I am not an up-and-coming comedian,” Pappas said to Page Six at the time. “I am surprised nobody in the writer’s room spoke up about this. I find it hard to believe Marcello wasn’t aware of me and the character.”
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