Would a live-action Ambiguously Gay Duo movie work?

Saturday Night Live doesn’t have too many surprises now-a-days. So, when Keith mentioned in his weekly SNL post that they did a surprising Ambiguously Gay Duo skit, I was intrigued.

What really got me excited (and got me laughing) was the cast for this skit. First, that episode host Ed Helms was one of the villains. Second, that Jimmy Fallon and Jon “Don Draper” Hamm played the live-action version of the duo. And third, that Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert — the actual voices of Ace and Gary — were two of the other villains. The first thing my boyfriend said when he saw the episode was, “Aw, man! That would make a good SNL movie.” And it got me thinking.

The big problem with the large majority of SNL movies is that it’s very difficult to take something that is hilarious in a 3 minute sketch and make it just as funny — hopefully funnier — in a 90 to 120 minute time-frame. MacGruber was the ultimate example of that … a sketch that thrived on its brevity being made into a full-length film. So, would a movie based on a sketch that is 90% gay jokes actually have a chance to be funny? Or would it just be annoying?

I think the one thing they could do if they were going to attempt a non-irritating AGD movie is to spread out the obvious gay jokes. Those “What are you looking at?” jokes would need to be spaced out throughout the movie, or the audience would start thinking, “OK, we get it, they’re ambiguously gay.”  The best SNL movies take the sketch and add funnier stuff to it — think of Wayne’s World. They didn’t just have Wayne and Garth sitting on the couch for an hour and half. If the focus was put on the hokey Batman/Robin parody aspect of the sketches, it would probably help the jokes stay funny. Would it be enough? I don’t know, but the right writer could do something special with it.

Jimmy Fallon and Jon Hamm were funny together — especially Hamm, who is hilarious whenever he lets go of the Don Draper intensity. How about them coming back to do it? I don’t remember if the villains ever stay the same on the sketches, but the ones in the live-action sketch made me laugh. If Ed Helms, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell wanted to be in the movie, I’d be all for it. And how about a focus on the villains? Colbert and Carrell obviously work well together, the villains bickering was fun and it would be another layer of humor besides the innuendo.

But I get it … it would be very tough to make this movie good. It might even be impossible to make a sketch like this work in a movie. I’d still like to see these actors play the characters again. Maybe the best thing would be a webseries.

Clacked by Katie Schenkel
on May 16, 2011 @ 19:19 EST5EDT