5 Key and Peele Sketches I Love

I am a huge fan of the comedy sketch duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. These are a few sketches I love from them:

1. High on Potenuse: In this sketch, Key and Peele play students in math class and Joe tells a joke while the teacher explains the concept of a hypotenuse, and jokingly tells his seatmate, Troy, that he wishes he was “high on potenuse.” Troy laughs loudly and then says aloud that he wishes he was high on potenuse, too, and everyone laughs after hearing the joke because they think Troy made the joke first. However, Joe is hurt and tells Troy that was his joke and he took it from him, but the teacher accuses Joe of being disruptive and tells him to be quiet. She laughs at the hypotenuse joke and continues to give credit to Troy while dismissing Joe’s claim that Troy stole his joke. Principal Martin brings in comedian Gabriel Iglesias, who thinks Troy is the one who told the joke, and Gabriel invites Troy on his comedy tour. Joe is obviously very upset because everyone thinks Troy made the joke, and he once again tries to tell everyone that Troy stole his joke, and the teacher finally snaps and yells at him to stop it and that he will never be as funny as Troy. When she gets back to the lesson, she says “hypotenuse” and she and everyone can’t stop laughing. Joe, however, sinks in humiliation in his chair.
2. Obama Angry Translator: In this sketch, Barack Obama (played by Peele) introduces everyone to his anger translator, Luther (played by Key). For every diplomatic formal thing Obama says, Luther interprets what Obama would have said if he wasn’t under pressure to be so formal (i.e. if he was allowed to express his anger). In real life, Barack had to deal with all sorts of stressors when he became president, the main one being racism and accusations that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. This sketch was genius because it says all of the things that Barack probably thought of saying but couldn’t since he is in the public eye. However, when Luther takes what Barack is saying to extremes (i.e. interpreting “my beautiful wife Michelle” into an objectification about Michelle’s appearance) he tells Luther to cool it, and Luther often does check himself in a humorous way.
3. Pegasus Siting: A white news crew goes into a predominantly Black neighborhood to report on a mythical story about siting the winged mythical horse Pegasus. At first one of the crew members says there is no news story that they can report in the neighborhood, but the news reporter says that they can make up something because the members of the community will be gullible enough to believe it. The crew asks about the horse and the residents go all out to prove the existence of the Pegasus. They bring in a guard/ military person to track the Pegasus down, and brawls even ensue debating the Pegasus siting. Some residents say that the Pegasus busted in their roofs, busted in their cars,
4. Ancestry.com commercial. This one was absolutely hilarious and tongue-in-cheek. In the sketch, several people are tracing their lineage to great figures of the past. The white people trace their lineage to Marie Antoinette and other white people in history, while all of the black people traced their lineage to Thomas Jefferson. As much as Thomas Jefferson was celebrated when I was growing up, I learned in college more about who he was, and it was a less rosy picture than the one I grew up with. Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner and fathered many children with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. I think of course, because it’s satire, it pokes fun at a more serious issue with history, which is that these white figures are portrayed as heroes but they also had sides to them which weren’t so heroic, and those less savory sides aren’t given much attention or scrutiny in traditional narratives of history. At the end of the day, no matter how much I revered one of the Founding Fathers growing up, he was a slaveowner, as were a lot of those guys.
5. In another sketch, Jordan Peele plays Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Key plays Tyson’s wife, who is sick of putting up with his nonsense. Every time she tells him he is neglecting his chores, that he is going to make them late for a funeral they have to go to because he isn’t dressed, or that he slept with another woman, Neil turns to the camera and tries to explain and make excuses for why he did what he with astrophysics. At first his wife is impressed and blown away with his reasoning and lets him off the hook, but soon after it’s revealed he slept with another woman she tells him she isn’t falling for his astrophysics reasoning anymore.

Author: The Arts Are Life

I am a writer and musician. Lover of music, movies, books, art, and nature. View all posts by The Arts Are Life