5 Other Countries That Have Their Own ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live isn’t always live from New York. Given the show’s popularity over five decades, it’s not surprising that other countries around the globe have adapted the franchise to fit their own cultural sensibilities.
But does every nation on earth have its version of Kenan Thompson? Here are five countries that do — or at least some reasonable facsimile.
SNL Korea
This one’s been around, off and on, since 2011, but it wasn’t easy to get started. “To get people to appear in this show, I had to beg,” head writer Jang Jin told Mwave. “I even asked them to appear on the show by giving them my next movie script.”
SNL Korea lasted for eight seasons through 2016, but a revival was announced in 2021. Like America’s SNL, it has its own Weekend Update and its own controversies, including accusations of sexual harassment by a boy band.
SNL Arabia
When a new SNL originating from Cairo launched in 2016, some of the American cast made a video to wish their Egyptian counterparts well. “Welcome to the SNL family and good luck!” said Taran Killam, Pete Davidson and Aidy Bryant. “Bye! Later!”
“We done? Yeah, good luck,” said Killam. “They are doomed.”
“It’s going to be tough, it’s a tough job,” said Bryant.
“It is hell, (Davidson, Killam and Bryant) were right about that,” cast member Yara Fahmy told CNN. “It’s an amazing kind of hell.”
“They had 40 years of figuring it out and to write it in one format book,” explained cast member Shadi Alfons. “It’s just a matter of finding the right content for our audience and tweaking the jokes so they are relevant and funny to the entire Middle East.”
The show lasted four seasons, producing two shows a week. The Supreme Media Council suspended the show in February 2018 for “sexual implications.”
SNL Québec
This French-language version of SNL contained not only original sketches but French versions of classic bits as well. That includes “Schweddy Balls,” a sketch that seems language-specific but got the requisite laughs anyway. (Check it out at the 26:40 mark.)
A 2014 review of the show’s first episode in Cult MTL made SNL Québec sound an awful lot like its American counterpart: “Things were off to a rocky start. … An opening sketch seemed to have been resurrected from a 20-year-old high-school variety show. … The first half hour of the show was basically overlong skit after overlong skit.”
Relatable.
Saturday Night Live (Spanish Version)
“¡estamos en directo y esto es Saturday Night Live!” began every show, which roughly translates to the redundant “We are live, and this is Saturday Night Live!”
The show premiered on free channel Cuatro to big ratings when it was introduced in 2009. Like Quebec’s show, the Spanish version repurposed classic sketches customized for local audiences, according to Variety. “More Cowbell,” for example, jettisoned Blue Oyster Cult in favor of Spanish heavy metal group Baron Rojo.
And instead of Weekend Update, each episode ended with “Las Noticias del SNL” (or “The SNL News”).
Saturday Night Live Japan
To adapt SNL for Japanese audiences, the show’s producers leaned heavily into the country’s popular Konto comedy style — i.e., slapstick. That’s one way to explain how a Weekend Update segment can turn into a water balloon fight. Stay dry out there, Splashzone.
America’s influence can also be seen in the direct lift of the show’s open, with an announcer somehow pulling off a Tokyo-style Don Pardo.
