
A New York City-based comedian is accusing Saturday Night Live of stealing his bit for its “Forbidden Romance” sketch, which starred Andrew Dismukes and Ego Nwodim.
The sketch, one of the highlights of this week’s Michael Keaton-hosted episode, imagines an interracial couple in 1955 professing their love to their two respective families, and receiving two very different responses.
While Nwodim’s father and brother are accepting of the romance, Dismukes’ mother and father are not, leading him to make his case with a historically incongruous rendition of the song, “Hey, Soul Sister.”
Now the writers of the sketch, which hangs its premise on some of the more embarrassing lines in the band Train’s white boy anthem to interracial love, are being accused of plagiarism.
In a message posted to Instagram Sunday, comedian Demetrius Fields wrote, “Someone at Saturday Night Live ripped off my bit last night so here’s a recording of me doing it from last May.”
“I’ve been doing it for 5 months in a lot of the same rooms people who work on that show are in, the comedian added, before allowing that “Maybe it was parallel thinking.”
Of course, neither Fields nor SNL are the first to point out the song’s tone-deaf lyrics, which see its white protagonist making a play for the song’s titular “Soul Sister” with inimitable lines like “You’re so gangsta/ I’m so thug.” Those critiques date back to the song’s original release 15 years ago.
And while both bits are hung on the song, SNL and Fields take different tacks as they mine it for comedy, with Fields commenting on the lack of Black women in its music video.
Being the 50-year institution that it is, this isn’t the first time SNL writers have been accused of plagiarism.
In 1995, the show settled a lawsuit with comedian Rick Shapiro after cast member and writer Jay Mohr was accused of stealing one of the comedian’s bits word-for-word for a sketch titled “O’Callahan & Son Pub.”
Over the years a number of other comedians and comedy groups, including Tig Notaro, Tim Heidecker, and The Groundlings have pointed out similarities between their works and ones included in the show.
We’ve reached out to NBC for comment and will update this post when/if we hear back.