Will Forte’s SNL character MacGruber might’ve started as an obvious MacGyver parody, but in time it became a blank canvas for Forte’s love of the absurd. You know how you stick a pill in a treat to get your dog to take its medicine? Forte slipped the ridiculousness of him prancing about wearing nothing but a celery stalk jammed in his rear or having unnecessarily lurid sex scenes with ghosts into thousands of movie theaters under the cover of a parody of a popular ‘80s action show. MacGruber hasn’t been about MacGyver since the first few times the character appeared on SNL.
Forte made his SNL hosting debut this weekend, and of course he brought his MacGruber vest and wig along with him. Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe also popped up as their characters from the MacGruber movie and TV series. In true MacGruber tradition, they appeared in three short videos throughout the episode, each one ending with an explosion, and each one weaving a common story thread about MacGruber’s devolution into a full-on QAnon devotee. The movie and show both have a strong vein of mocking the right-wing jingoism of ‘80s action movies through the character of MacGruber (the movie made him as much Rambo as MacGyver), and these videos take that to its natural (and timely) conclusion. Of course MacGruber would be a mask-hating, Covid-denying, MAGA insurrectionist.
Check ‘em all out in the YouTube clip below. And if you are a fan of Forte’s distinctive strand of silliness, you might want to check out the rest of his sketches from SNL this weekend.