"I've only got $60, and I need six shirts and four pairs of pants."
"You came to the right place — that's what we do at H&M."
So begins perennial host John Goodman's hilarious H&M skit on Saturday Night Live, wherein he discovers that the retailer's obsession with all things "slim" goes way beyond meager budgets. Continuing the variety series' winning streak of music spoofs, this one features real-life rapper Wale and SNL's own Jay Pharoah extoling the cheap and cheerful pleasures of H&M merchandise. Meanwhile, the show stoops for the low-hanging fruit when Goodman tries on the brand's notoriously tiny clothes — who didn't see that one coming? Sure, a large man struggling to fit into skinny jeans is a cheap gag, but because Goodman is a consummate pro at physical comedy, it excels. Meanwhile, the jibes at H&M's attempted cooler-than-thou image and overwhelming floor plan are pretty dead-on. And, as Goodman enthuses, the cheapskate clotheshorse dream can be yours — "all for less than a tank of gas!"
The three-wise-guys skit also worked fairly well, if mainly because of its legendary surprise players. The holiday-themed parody united Goodman, Robert De Niro, and Sylvester Stallone in an unholy trio of "lesser magi" — not from the Far East but the East Coast, "mainly New Jersey and Long Island." "This kid's gonna be big," speculates a typically pensive De Niro, regarding — who else? — baby Jesus (whose dad, Joseph, of course, "works in construction.") Watch below.
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