I mentioned this sketch before but I want to devote an entire post to it because it’s that good.

In the summer of 1990 I used to ride my bike to Pittsford Plaza with Josh and Loren to see R rated movies. In 1990, I was not old enough to see R rated movies, so , Josh, Loren, and I would run our con. We would approach the ticket window within ten minutes of whatever R rated movie we actually wanted to see, then pick another movie for which we would purchase tickets. Then came a little acting to sell it.

“Oh, man, we’re late for Gremlins 2.” We always bought tickets for Gremlins 2.

“Oh no.”

“But I guess we should just buy tickets for it anyway?”

“Yeah, I mean your mom is still expecting to pick us up afterward.”

(We had clearly ridden our bikes, having just locked them up in front of the ticket window.)

In retrospect, the employees of the movie theater were probably eighteen year old kids who couldn’t have cared less but at the time we felt like geniuses. We did actually see Gremlins 2 the first time we rode our bikes to the movie theater before we cooked up our brilliant R rated movie scheme. So, Gremlins 2 always holds a special place in my heart.

It was also a tremendous flop. I didn’t think anyone saw it. That was until I saw this Key and Peele sketch.

The more comedy you consume and create, the more you come to appreciate specifics. There are only so many game show parodies and roommate scenes to do. This sketch gets better and better every time I see it. And I’ve been passing it along to anyone who hasn’t seen it. The cinematic taste of a thirteen year old is not that sophisticated (Back to the Future II was my Citizen Kane). I really didn’t get how bad a movie Gremlins 2 was until I revisited it with this sketch. All of the batshit crazy things described in this sketch – as the sketch itself says – are actually in the movie. I love how Jordan Peele must have had his own experience with this movie, maybe watching it on cable, maybe using it to sneak into Die Hard 2, and then twenty years later he wrote this sketch.

And bonus points for having Star Magic Jackson, Jr. dress like Meshach Taylor from Mannequin.