Marcello Hernández not only based his latest Saturday Night Live character on a real person, he went the extra mile to see to it that said prep school teacher had a front row seat to it all.
In the February 28 episode of NBC’s SNL, host Connor Storrie’s monologue was followed by “Mr. Fronzi,” a sketch in which Hernández played a high school math teacher in the midst of a crummy day.
Mr. Fronzi wielded a highly distinct speaking voice, one that among other things made the word “peanuts” sound like “penis”—much to the merriment of his tittering teen students (played by Storrie, Sarah Sherman, Kam Patterson, Jeremy Culhane, and Veronika Slowikowska).
As the sketch (penned by Hernández, Will Stephen, Asha Ward, and Dan Bulla) played out, Storrie’s character was caught mimicking Mr. Fronzi after the teacher stepped out to reapply aloe vera to his entire body. (It’s a long story.)
“This is one of the darkest days of my entire life,” a crestfallen Mr. Fronzi overly dramatically declared, leading each of the students to apologize for their immature actions—aping his voice all the while, mind you—and attest that they truly do like him.
Days later, on his Instagram Story, Hernández shared that Mr. Fronzi was based on a theology teacher of his from Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami, Florida, named Maria “Angie” Fernandez. Years later, “I imitated her in my high school’s ‘Senior Skit’ in 2015,” he added.
Hernández also revealed that Fernandez was flown from Florida to New York, to “see her voice live on in Mr. Fronzi.” At far right above, you see Hernández and castmate Colin Jost posing with a delighter Hernandez and her commemorative cue card.
