We’ve known for some time that Americans love The Great British Bake Off. But why? Do they adore it for the same reasons as us Brits – its familiar tension, the sweetness of the bakers, the actually very impressive cakes, and, most importantly, the puns? Or does its Stateside appeal lie in its strange fetishisation of all things British?
Well, TV comedy giant Saturday Night Live parodied the show last week, and it’s so unfunny that this mole is forced to conclude that Americans simply don’t get where the humour of the Bake Off lies.
Starring Emily Blunt and SNL cast member Cecily Strong as the show’s first baking duo, failed Big Brother contestants “from the only town that voted for the Brexit”, it’s a strangely classist scene that feels like a 2003 Little Britain sketch. (Or so your mole assumes, having never debased oneself with such tawdry nonsense.)
Instead of poking holes in the already ridiculous format of the show, the joke is that, unlike the presenters, judges and other contestants, Blunt and Strong are poor – and therefore stupid, drunk, fame-hungry, rude, right-wing liars who wouldn’t know a cake if it hit them in the face at a bake sale.
If this was meant to highlight the differences between the fluffy, mellow Bake Off and the controversy machine of Big Brother, it doesn’t do a very good job. Plus, the polite and confused Mel and Sue show a deep misunderstanding of where the show’s character really lies. The result is a sketch that is a lot less funny that your average three minutes of the actual Bake Off. This mole suggests searching for Dead Ringers’ The Great British Innuendo skit instead.
Oh well. At least Kate McKinnon does a very, very good Mary Berry.
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