Funny / Key & Peele

"I said biiiiiitch!"

• The sketch where an African warlord asks his "most trusted soldier over the age of eight" to Mercy Kill him so he doesn't have to surrender to the enemy, who will torture him for weeks. The mook repeatedly screws up; first he stabs the warlord, without killing him. Then instead of shooting him in the head, he shoots him in the knee. Then when he actually is about to shoot him in the head, he runs out of bullets. Then he resorts to just hitting him over the head with the pistol. Then the warlord finally just tells him to grab some more bullets, only for the mook to throw a steel cooking pot at him. After some more convincing, he goes off to find more bullets....
  Mook: I did not find the bullets.
  Warlord: What!?
  Mook: But I did find something better: boiling hot water.
  Warlord: What are you going to do wi—
  Mook: (pours the boiling water on the warlord's crotch)
  Warlord: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! (runs out of the room and towards the fighting) I SURRENDER! I AM THE GENERAL—
  Mook: (horrified) Commander! Don't go! They'll torture you!
• The Obama sketches with his anger translator, Luther.
  • The man himself has given these sketches his stamp of approval, even referencing them on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
  • White House Correspondents Dinner, April 24 2015. Obama invites Luther on-stage. Damn...
    • This bit:
      Luther: AND THAT'S WHY WE'RE RUNNING FOR A THIRD TERM!
      Obama: No—no. No, we're not.
      Luther: We're not?
      Obama: No.
      Luther: WHO THE HELL SAID THAT?!
    • And then Obama gets so worked up about climate change that Luther has to calm him down before he flees the stage to avoid Barry's wrath.
      Luther: All due respect, Sir? You don't need a anger translator. You need counseling. I-I-I-I'm gettin' outta here, I ain't... ain't tryin' to get into all this.
  • Obama and Luther crossing paths with Hillary Clinton and her Anger Translator Savannah. "Damn, some peoples is just too angry," Luther muses afterward...
  • Culminating in the "Farewell Address" video:
    • Towards the end, Luther books the Obama family a four-year hotel stay for five in Sweden. When Obama asks why five, he hastily claims it's for the dog Bo — and then whispers "Make it six..."
  • Obama sits down with Republican leaders to hash out an agenda. Republicans, being openly obstructionist, say "we're going to disagree" right off the bat. So Obama pulls the "Do the opposite" gag on them, tricking the Republicans into agreeing to an ambitious liberal agenda. And the Republicans had gotten themselves so hard-wired to oppose everything Obama stands for that they, much to their own horror, realize that they simply can't stop themselves, one of them going so far as to cut his own tongue out in a futile attempt.
    Obama: (gloating like a Magnificent Bastard) Nobody better toss me a cigarette. (catches one in his hand and puts to his lips; then turns to look at the camera) Ain't I a stinker? (he gives the camera a shit-eating grin, iris out)
• The East Coast/West Coast College Bowl sketch, featuring Key and Peele (and a token white guy) as a group of bizarrely named players except for the token white guy just named Dan Smith. And some of which don't even go to college — one of them, Torque [Construction Noise] Lewith (the middle part is pronounced by the sounds of a jackhammer) is from Nevada State Penitentiary, a state prison.
  • Another is just named Eeee Eeeee and is pronounced by a long dolphin-like squeak.
  • Dan Smith's alma mater, Brigham Young University, is what really brings that particular joke home. (It's the flagship school of the LDS (Mormon) Church, with a reputation for being extremely straitlaced and conservative.)
  • One of the West Coast Players is from Saskatchewan University. For those who don't know, Saskatchewan is a Canadian province^note There also isn't a university called Saskatchewan University, but there is a University of Saskatchewan. Fittingly, they have one of the best collegiate Canadian Football teams in Western Canada.
• The entire skit with the inner-city substitute teacher Mr. Garvey (played by Key) who keeps mispronouncing his students' names, such as calling Jacqueline Jay-quel-lin and Blake Ba-la-kay, only to think they're messing with him when they try to correct him. With each polite correction, he just gets angrier and angrier culminating in...
  Teacher: A.A. Ron! Where are you? Where is A.A. Ron right now? ...No A.A. Ron? Well, you either be sick, dead, or mute, A.A. Ron!
  Aaron: ...Uh, here.
  Teacher: (beat) Well, why didn't you say it the first time I asked?!
  Aaron: Wha-
  Teacher: You know, I'm just asking y- I said it, like, four times! So, why didn't you say it the first time I said A.A. Ron?!
  Aaron: ...Because it's pronounced "Aaron"?
  Teacher: SON OF A BITCH! (turns and around and swipes everything off his desk) YOU DONE MESSED UP, A.A. RON! Now, take your ass on down to Oh-Shag-Henessy's office right now and tell him what you did!
  Aaron: Who?
  Teacher: O'Shag Henessy!
  Aaron: ...Principal O'Shaughnessy?
  Teacher: Get out of my goddamned classroom before I break my foot off in your ass!
  • And then the punchline where the only kid he got the name right (Timothy, said as Tim-oh-thay) is a black kid (played by Peele) that was out of view until the last second.
    Timothy: Pree-sant.
    Teacher: Thank you!
  • Part 2 is pretty freakin' hilarious as well with the same teacher and students but instead of names, they argue over whether or not school clubs exist at the school. Must be seen to be fully appreciated.
    "AIN'T NONE OF Y'ALL OLD ENOUGH TO GO TO THE DAMN CLUB!!!"
    • And when he demands to know which clubs they're in, he gets to A-A-Ron...
      Aaron: I'm the President of the Glee club, why do I talk.
      Teacher: The Glee Club?! Like they gon' have a club dedicated to a TV show!
  • This is taken up to eleven when the principal makes an announcement for all club members to come get their yearbook pictures taken, only for the teacher to say it's a fake announcement, with several of the students having absolutely mutinous looks on their faces.
    Teacher: Now does anybody in here have a VALID reason for leaving this classroom?
    (one student raises his hand)
    Teacher: Timothy?
    Timothy: I gotta go pick up my daughter.
    Teacher: You're excused.
  • And then in 2022, Key reprised the role for a Paramount+ commercial, with him mispronouncing the names of various Nickelodeon characters, including Bla-ze, Big Knotty, B-Louie, K-room, Do-rah, Bumbly-Bay... the topper is A.A. Ron once again, only this time it's LA Rams player Aaron Donald.
• Flicker: Basically what would happen if Christopher Nolan and Michael McCann decided to make an episode of The Office.
• "I said… (looks around for the wife) 'biiiiiiiiitch...'" They continue to do this even while they're floating in space. What's more, the series ends with their wives openly bragging about calling their husbands "bitch" without any concern that their husbands are right there hearing them.
• East-West College Bowl 2.
  • The cherry on top is the Token White player. A.A. Ron Balakey.
    • Genius Bonus; A.A. Ron is from Morehouse College an historically all-black college (Ironically located in Atlanta, Georgia, despite A.A. Ron playing for the western team), so he was the Token White there too, which might also explain his name.
  • The player Harvard University... from DeVry University. He even seems embarrassed saying it.
  • God is homeschooled.
  • Another player is named Wing Dings. And his name is written in Wing Dings. He also didn't go to any college, instead taking online classes.
  • A player named "Fudge", who doesn't mention any institution, but is apparently an excellent player. Made more hilarious if you know anything about football, as he is apparently 350 pounds despite being a running back, a position that favors lighter players (the average weight of running backs in the NFL is only 220 pounds). A 350 pound running back would literally be unstoppable, as they would amount to a running tank.
  • Yet another has his face censored and his voice filtered out. His name? "Firstname Lastname" and he went to "College University."
  • The ribbon-clad player known only as "Squeeeeeeeeeeps."
  • The capper is one player who went to Oxford University (an institution in the United Kingdom, not the States) named Benedict Cumberbatch. His name was just that weird enough in real life to qualify for an East West Bowl name.
  • A player whose name consists entirely of Morse Code, from the Army..../Navy Surplus Store.
  • The East-West Pro Bowl went even further than its predecessors by having real NFL players with odd names (like D'Brickashaw Ferguson, who inspired the sketch in the first place, as well as Leger Douzable and Frostee Rucker) interspersed with Key and Peele in various guises. It's capped off with Aaron Rodgers... who reads his name as "A.A. Ron Rod-Gers".
  • "East/West Bowl Rap Showdown" is a sight to behold, with a pair of rap videos ostensibly made for each team's fans featuring, respectively, a catchy East Coast rap-style beat with plenty of Stylistic Suck and goofy writing befitting a rap song made by a bunch of college kids training in sports rather than acting or editing... and a groovy West Coast-style beat with smoother production and delivery... that quickly descends into chaos with how goddamn weird in particular the West team's names are, culminating in Dan Smith busting into an Eminem-esque flow.
  The Player Formerly Known As Mousecop: The player...
  T.J. A.J. R.J. Backslashinsforth V: T.J.! A.J.!
  The Player Formerly Known As Mousecop: ...formerly known...
  EEEEE EEEEEEEEE: EEEEE!!!
  Torque [Construction Noise] Lewith: [Construction noise.] LEWITH!
  The Player Formerly Known As Mousecop: ...as Mousecop.
  Donkey Teeth: And Donkey Teeth!
• The skit with the man who is mistaken for a terrorist and being tortured by a government agent. The whole thing is just gold.
  Terrorist: Terrier-ist! The phone call said terrier-ist! Me and my friends, we.. we breed dogs, and we write fiction! We discuss terrier-ist plots-
  (interrogator punches him in the stomach)
  Agent: Cut the shit Rashid!
  • And then at the end, it's revealed he really WAS a terrorist... and also a terrier-ist. The White House gets attacked by a bunch of small dogs.
• Superman bed. Starts at 2:06
• The fake Mr. T Public Service Announcement.
  • "FOR YOUR INFORMATION, IT'S NOT EVEN A HAIRCUT! IT'S A RARE FORM OF MALE-PATTERN BALDNESS!" *Begins sobbing*
• The Power Falcons sketch: it starts off as a Power Rangers parody, until they start calling Peele's character "Black Falcon". He's not the Black Falcon.
• The rap battle with Barack Obama:
  Obama: (gets out of his limo) I'm the leader of the free world.
  (Mic Drop, exit Obama in his limo)
• The sketch with the nervous boyfriend/husband looking at internet porn.
• "Magical Negro Fight". What started as a parody of a tired trope ends up as an awesome magical combat. Followed by:
  Office Cleaner: [looks around at trashed office] Good Lord. Are you all right?
  [White Businessman behind desk nods]
  Office Cleaner: [wisely] Well, I guess sometimes things have to come apart, before we can put them back together again.
  White Businessman: Oh, you're a Magical Negro too?
  Office Cleaner: [smiles vanishes from face] Who you callin' "Negro", bitch?
• Some of the intro bits deserve some credit too.
  • The one introducing the Les Miserables parody has Peele mentioning that "your girlfriend may have dragged you to see it", then going into Meegan mode to illustrate. "Your boy is in there! Wolverine is in there! Gladiator is in there!"
• "Aerobics Meltdown" a parody of the 'Crystal Light Aerobics Championship' videos from the 80s on YouTube.
• Cat Poster. Jordan Peele's smarmy voice makes Carter Finley's idiotic attempts to be sneaky even more hilarious. "Hong...Inthar?"
  Finley: His name was... Baldy Tallman... Coffee... Coop.
  Detective: [Drinking from a coffee cup.] Now you're just talking about me! I'll give you one last chance, Finley... who... is in charge?
  Finley: [Still straight-faced.] His name was... Angry Man. The warehouse is located in the Diploma... for Being a Detective.
• The Al-Qaeda Terrorist Meeting(Warning: NSFW language). All of it.
• The Game Of Thrones recap. Which pretty much summarizes the series up to Season Four before the two answer the Call of the Blue.
• Key and Peele taking the pre-game pump-up a little too serious. With each escalation more violent until we're into Kill Bill territory.
  Peele: (driving away from the explosion, sips tea in victory) Play this game... like it's the last game of your lives...
  • Genius Bonus: the player names are from the East-West gag.
• In this sketch Key, Peele, and several other black people form a flash mob dance to music that sounds very much like Thriller when this happens:
  White Man:RACE WARRRRRR! IT'S A GODDAMN RACE WARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! (Starts shooting gun).
  • Followed by chaos everywhere, as the flash mob look around confused.
• Dicknanigans. Warning: May elicit winces from those either involved with performance art or with dicks.
• "MENSTRUATION OOOOORIENTATION!"
• Da Struggle feat. Bling Benzy. Da Struggle, as played by Key, is a super straight-laced and politically charged rapper in the vein of Common or Mos Def. His lyrics revolve around using hip-hop as a social tool to inspire the African-American community...a view that is emphatically NOT shared by his crunk-style feature-mate Bling Benzy (an obvious Lil' Jon expy).
  Da Struggle: I came from the streets with nothing in my pockets, no food, no books, no power in the sockets. Each battle I fight, a role model and a teacher; hip hop, my church and every rapper a preacher.
  (cue Bling Benzy)
  Bling Benzy: I preach from my ass, My farts is my sermons! The church is your mouth where I shoot my holy sperm in! You can take your role models, roll 'em on my meat, 'cause "bitch" is always on the menu when I go out to eat!
  (cut to Da Struggle with a "What the Hell was THAT?" expression, before he picks himself up and starts the next verse)
  Da Struggle: (walking with a young single black mother) But everywhere we go, we don't forget the struggle, son: black woman, two jobs, two kids, too tired to juggle 'em—
  Bling Benzy: (starts jiggling said single mother's breasts) Juggle 'em, juggle 'em, jiggity-jiggity juggle 'em! Yummy yum yummy, titty-titties in my tummy-um!
  (Da Struggle walks away in frustration. Benzy shrugs and continues with the track).
  Bling Benzy: Titties in my mouth, I got titties in my mouth, I got tig ol' biddies in a buncha different cities!
• Harriet Tubman tries to lead some escaped slaves to freedom on the underground railroad. Unfortunately for them, Harriet is the world's first "free runner" aka, a hardcore parkour enthusiast.
  Escaped Slave: Where the hell is she now?
  (Harriet dives through a closed window then gets up like nothing happened)
  Harriet Tubman: That was the easy part. Now stay close. This next five hundred miles gets a little sticky.
  Escaped Slave: (Beat) Forget this, man, I'm going back.
• The Retired Military Specialist sketch is a masterclass in how to subvert a cliche and simultaneously stretch a joke as far as humanly possible while still remaining utterly hilarious.
• The "Les Mis" sketch, the moment when Key as Legataux sings "Now, where did this bitch come from?" is particularly funny in the context of the dark, serious material surrounding it.
• Key as an unstable Macedonian cafe owner in this sketch.
• Wendell's "Power of Wings" video shows where his budget went. The captive princess (who is on camera for like 10 seconds) cost him almost eight grand to cast. Worse, she appears to be just a common theater arts student.
  • Could count as a bit of Fridge Brilliance. Wendell has little, if any, contact with women of any kind, so he'd be completely unaware this amateur actress was outrageously overcharging. Notice that the male guitarist was a much more reasonable $450.
• Hingle McCringleberry's outrageous Serial Escalation of his touchdown celebrations. Culminating in him inflating and frolicking in a Bounce Castle in the end zone.
  • And the killjoy ref always throwing the penalty flag except for the above Bounce Castle celebration, where he instead joins in.
• "Post Apocalyptic Hunt:" the hero quests to find another human survivor in the wasteland, and final does... who turns out to be a hyperactive, childish, and annoying lunatic. He wordlessly offs him and then continues his search as if this encounter never happened.
• Similarly, "Alien Imposters": The pair, with a white girl tagging along, are identifying aliens disguised as humans by their lack of racism. When killed, they bleed green and revert to alien form. When they find a white guy happy to see them, he hands them a valet ticket and tells them it's the silver Lexus and not to scuff the paint. They immediately shoot him in the head, though he doesn't bleed green or turn into an alien.
  Emily: (uncertain) Was he an alien too?
  Key: Yep.
  • Earlier they came across a black guy in gangsta clothes: "What do you think of the police?" Black guy: "I loved their third album." He's an alien.^note Granted, Ghost in the Machine was way better than Zenyatta M... BLAM
• The one where Key and Peele are chained up in the SAW bathroom. And the clown holding them is driven insane by the fact they are always so positive, and nothing he does can get a reaction from them.
  Monster Clown: YOU'RE MAKING ME CRAZY!!
  • Particularly insane in that Peele only has one arm, the right one clearly having been sawn off.
    Peele: Tell you one thing: don't miss the arm.
    Key: Really?
    Peele: First of all, leftie? Okay? So this thing pretty much got in the way.
    • When a rat starts nibbling the open wound on Key's leg, they both look at it for a moment, then look at each other and go "Awww!"
      Key: Circle of life!
    • The clown gloats that "your suffering has only just begun". Key and Peele respond by citing the idea that embracing that life is suffering is the first step to happiness.
• The Roommate Meeting sketch. Where they are completely blind to an obvious haunting. And then it turns out, they knew the ghost was there the whole time. But appearently Ping has the best grades in the house.
• Key's racist country song, and Key being naive to it until the very end of the skit.
• This exchange from one of Andre and Meegan's fights.
  Meegan: You are literally an asshole!
  Andre: I can't be an asshole! I got arms, legs, and a head!
• The Too Dumb to Live security guard who willingly breaks out a criminal, by loudly shouting it out, and pulling the alarm after the prisoner makes a sarcastic snark about doing so.
• Basically everything about the pizza delivery skit. And Wendell (played by Peele) Crossing the Line Twice, by faking Clara's death, rather than revealing she was never real. And Carlos (played by Key)'s Large Ham version of the Big "NO!".
• The "Weird Playlist" sketch. Key and Peele, as themselves, are out for a drive together at night and decide to put on some music. Once they put on Peele's playlist, however, the first thing that shuffles on is an audio diary, and due to curiosity, Key insists that they don't skip it. The content starts out just kinda quirky at first... and then goes increasingly off the rails all while maintaining a delivery in a serious deadpan.
  Peele's Diary: I have committed myself to understanding what a woman feels like when she is penetrated. I want to fulfill this commitment, but the matchstick won't fit in my penis.
  Key: [Stunned Silence.]
  Peele: ...It's... um. It's too square.
  Key: "Too square"?! How about — never mind.
  Peele: ...My penis.
  Key: [Impatient.] I understand.
  Peele: ...It's too square.
  Key: I understa — what?!
• The fight between Reginald VelJohnson and the producer in the "Family Matters" skit peaks with -
  Producer: [Urkel] IS OUR BREAD AND BUTTER, YOU MOTHERFUCKER! I AM HIGH ON COCAINE!!!
  VelJohnson: I'M A FUCKING ACTOR, GENE! I HAVE DONE MORE COCAINE THAN YOU WEIGH, MOTHERFUCKER!!!
  • Earlier in the sketch, Reginald lists off the increasingly outlandish plots that "Urkelmania" has inspired. Among the ones we hear are Steve turning Carl into a giant sandwich and eating him, Steve changing Carl into a race car, and future episodes which will entail the entire family save Carl being teleported to another dimension, and Carl himself being changed into a Steve Urkel clone. VelJohnson sums it up: "That's TWO Steve Urkels and NO FAMILY on a SHOW CALLED FAMILY MATTERS!" What makes it even better is that the late season plots of Family Matters really did get that nuts ("Bruce Juice," anyone?).
• Carlito (Peele)'s lame efforts in "Crazy Gangsters" to prove that he is the most 'loco' member of the gang, and Key's in-universe explanations as to why his behaviour isn't loco:
  Peele: But check this out. I got nine punch cards from Fro-Yo Universe, each with one stamp in it. Every time I get a Fro-Yo, I get a new card.
  Key: Carlito, that's just being cavalier with your finances instead of collecting your free dessert. That's not loco, that's just like...financially irresponsible.
• The "These Fake Beards Will Save an African Child’s Life" sketch, which is about a charity stopping African children from being forcefully conscripted into becoming Child Soldiers ...by giving them fake beards. They even get the kids to do stereotypical elderly things, like playing shuffleboard. The crazy thing is, it actually works.
  • The icing on the cake is that the warlord actually does suspect something is up and tugs at the beard of one of the Africans...but the guy he's suspecting is the one with an actual beard.
• The "Boarding A Plane Shouldn't Be This Hard" sketch, in which a man in Boarding Group 1 has to wait behind first class, business class, military personnel, people with babies, religious leaders, people in wheelchairs, old people in wheelchairs with babies, religious leaders with military babies, Jason Schwartzman, people with blue suitcases (which the man tries to invoke but he's told he has a blue computer bag), and drunk people.
• The "Kobe Beef Burger" sketch, in which a man brings Kobe burgers to a BBQ, and begins obsessing on how to cook and serve the patties. And then he heimlichs the host for taking a bite out of one, eats the small piece, and says none of them are worthy of eating his Kobe burgers. Oh, and he steals the host's dog too.
• "Cunnilingus Class", which is especially hilarious for Key and Peele's Motor Mouth, Large Ham delivery and carefully rehearsed and synchronised gestures:
  Shaboots: You with the hat!
  Guy in Hat: Yo.
  Shaboots: How you like your B.J.'s?
  Guy in hat: Damn, dog, all the time! [laughs, high-fives guy next to him]
  Shaboots: SHUT THE F*** UP! That's cause penises is easy! And vaginas is hard.
  Shaboots & T-Ray: [waving their arms weirdly] They're CON-FUUUU-UUUUSING!
  T-Ray: Imagine! There's a explosion at the envelope factory!
  Shaboots: Flaps! Everywhere! A world of flaps!
  T-Ray: And you need to lick your way out the factory!
  Shaboots: But every bitch's flaps is different!
  T-Ray: Learn your bitch's particular flaps!
  Shaboots & T-Ray: [waving their arms weirdly] Flaps be CRAA-AAAA-ZY!
  Shaboots: Every flap needs to be listened to.
  T-Ray: And then you will get out of the factory alive!
• "Cooking Shows Can Mess With Your Head", in which Key manages to take Gordon Ramsay's penchant for bait-and-switch comments to its logical extreme, constantly flipping back and forth between insulting and praising the dish he ate until it culminates in him stabbing the chef who made it, before finishing off with "in conclusion... meh". What helps to sell is the musical cues constantly shifting back and forth from intense to relaxed with each bait-and-switch.