Stars of Saturday Night Live and Shark Tank aligned in SNL’s January 27 episode as host Dakota Johnson played a book club member with an improbable million-dollar idea.
And if you live for Johnson’s “That’s not the truth, Ellen” energy, the Madame Web star’s cutting wit was on full display on SNL, as you’ll see in the highlights below.
In Saturday’s “Book Club” sketch, Johnson’s catty character told her fellow club members that she’s getting ready to pitch a product on Shark Tank. That product is a T-shirt that reads, “Don’t ask if I’m okay. I’m okay. But if everyone starts asking if I’m okay, I might start crying.”
Confused? So were the other club members. “Is it, like, a special type of T-shirt?” Sarah Sherman’s character asks.
“Or is it just a T-shirt that says that on it?” Chloe Fineman’s character wonders.
“Ha!” Johnson’s character responds. “Bingo! She might be ugly, but she’s smart!”
The other club members are skeptical, but when Heidi Gardner’s character swears that she’s OK and then breaks down in tears over her domestic woes, they start to see the light. Ego Nwodim’s character offers $400k for 20 percent of the business, and then Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran and Mark Cuban materialize with even more lucrative offers…
In Saturday’s “Please Don’t Destroy” short, meanwhile, Johnson meets the namesake trio — and she makes no bones about how unimpressive she found them.
“I’ve always wanted to meet the Lonelier Island,” she quips in one barb.
The Please Don’t Destroy boys give as good as they get, though. “Well, hey, I’ve always wanted to meet the star of Madame Webb,” John Higgins says. “Can you introduce me to Sydney Sweeney?”
And Martin Herlihy asks, “So genuinely, do you still have to audition, or do they just give you the part as soon as Aubrey Plaza says no?”
“That’s almost as funny as the movie you made that no one saw,” Johnson replies. “What’s it like looking like the last three guys a lesbian sleeps with before coming out?”
Eventually, Johnson calls a “nepo truce” with Higgins and Herlihy, both of whom have famous parents. “A foot in the door and so much more,” the trio say as they touch rings. (Ben Marshall, who has regular-person parents, isn’t invited into the circle.)
And in the “Big Dumb Cup” sketch, Saturday Night Live riffed on the Stanley tumbler fad, with Johnson, Gardner, and Fineman playing white-woman influencers singing the praises of the coveted cup.
For starters, there’s the health benefits. “Mmm, you can really taste the bacteria,” Fineman says.
“I’m getting lead,” Gardner said.
Then there’s the, ahem, watertight lid. “It doesn’t leak at all,” Garner raves as water trickles out of her cup’s lid.
And there’s the capacity. “It holds almost an entire bottle of Josh [wine],” Johnson says. “Get in there, Josh!”
In short, these ladies don’t go anywhere without their Big Dumb Cup. “Wanna hear a secret? If I’m not sippin’, I’m peein’,” Gardner says.
“Why do you think they spell it C-U-P?” Johnson points out. “Ha ha, I’m bad.”
Saturday Night Live, Saturday, 11:30/10:30c