‘SNL’: Nate Bargatze’s George Washington Returns to Dream of American English Becoming ‘Our Own Thing’ | Video
A breakout sketch for Nate Bargatze hosting on “SNL” last season was “Washington’s Dream,” playing to his strengths as a deadpan standup as he played George Washington offering up his… unexpected dreams for America. Returning to host Saturday, Bargatze reprised the sketch in “Washington’s Dream 2,” set as the nation’s founder leads his men across the Delaware.
Washington delivers a rousing speech, promising that they will survive because they “fight to control our own destiny, to create our own nation, and to do our own thing with the English language.”
As Mikey Day’s revolutionary questions what “our own thing” means, Bargatze proceeds to explain his grammar-specific dreams for this new nation.
“I dream that one day our great nation will have a word for the number 12. We shall call it a dozen,” Washington vows. When asked what other numbers there will be words for, he responds, “None. Only 12 shall have its own word, because we are freemen. And we will be free to spell some words two different ways.”
Specifying which words this could include, Bargatze offers the words “donut” and the name “Jeff.” Asked what those two ways to spell the name could be, he reveals his own hidden bias as he breaks it down: “The short way with the J, and the stupid way with the G.”
Reprising a running bit from the original sketch, when Kenan Thompson plays one of the soldiers and continues to bring up his assumption that these new freedoms will apply to “men of color like myself,” a weary Washington merely pats him on the shoulder and moves on. He ultimately concedes that Black men will be freed after “a war,” but declines to comment on whether that will be the Revolutionary War.
“We will also have two names for animals,” Bargatze-Washington promises. “One, when they are alive, and a different one when they become food. So cows will be beef, pigs will be pork.”
Bowen Yang’s revolutionary questions, “And chickens, sir?”
“That one stays,” Washington asserts. “Chickens are chicken. And we will create our own foods, and name them what we want. Like the hamburger.”
When questioned if it will be made of ham, Bargatze shoots that down. “If it only were that simple. A hamburger is made of beef, just as a buffalo wing is made of chicken. But fear not, men. A hot dog will not be made of dogs.”
When James Austin Johnson’s revolutionary questions what hot dogs will be made of, Washington tells him to get out of the boot, sending him leaping over the side. Bargatze clarifies that real Americans would never want to know what’s in a hot dog.
Bargatze’s Washington goes on to lay out his plans for putting his face on money and a bunch of weird stuff on the back, naming the first year of school “kindergarten” and the second “first grade,” plus more.
You can watch “Washington’s Dream 2” in the video above, and watch the original “Washington’s Dream” below, featuring Nate Bargatze’s Washington laying out aspirations largely focused around ignoring the metric system.
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