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Pedro Pascal Took a Wild Ride to Rainbow Road in SNL's "HBO Mario Kart Trailer"
"Let's a-go," the red-capped hero (Pedro Pascal) tells Princess Peach (Chloe Fineman) in the Emmy-nominated sketch.
In the weeks leading up to February 16's three-hour 50th anniversary celebration on NBC, the team behind Saturday Night Live has selected one sketch from every single season — 50 seasons in 50 days — to reflect the show's rich legacy across five decades. Presenting the sketch that represents Season 48: "HBO Mario Kart Trailer" starring Pedro Pascal.
The creative teams who make Saturday Night Live's pretaped sketches are skilled at giving a kid-friendly franchise a gritty reboot: Look no further than Season 45's "Grouch," a Joker parody that remade the Sesame Street gang like we'd never seen them before. And on February 4, 2023, Host Pedro Pascal starred in another popular reimagining of an innocent universe turned dystopian: "HBO Mario Kart Trailer."
At the time of Pascal's SNL debut, he was riding the biggest success to date of his long career in TV and movies, starring as Joel in The Last of Us — itself a screen adaptation of a hit video game franchise. Thus, the inspiration to present a version starring a-Mario (Pascal), Princess Peach (Chloe Fineman), Luigi (Mikey Day), Yoshi (Bowen Yang), Bowser (Kenan Thompson) and Toad (Marcello Hernández).
"It's been ten years since our kingdom fell," Princess Peach says in a voiceover at the top of the trailer, over footage of an obliterated Mushroom Kingdom. "The only thing we have left? Hope."
What unfolds is a hysterical scenario in which Mario, Luigi and their pals unite to help "smuggle" Princess Peach to Rainbow Road. Anyone else ready to watch the full version of this motion picture?
"HBO Mario Kart Trailer" was Season 48's most-watched pretaped sketch in 2023, and it's drawn more than 19 million YouTube views to date. And while Pedro Pascal nabbed an Emmy nod for his The Last of Us role, he *also* landed an Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series Emmy nomination for his SNL episode. Deservedly so, for an installment that also introduced his "Protective Mom" character, who'd resurface in Bad Bunny's Season 49 episode.
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SNL's "HBO Mario Kart Trailer" was written by Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell
In a behind-the-scenes video on the making of "HBO Mario Kart Trailer," cast member Mikey Day, who wrote the sketch with SNL co-head writer Streeter Seidell, acknowledged that it was "a spiritual sequel" to the Grouch sketch, which they also wrote.
"So this is The Last of Us meets Mario Kart," Day explained, adding that Princess Peach is "the equivalent of Ellie in this," referring to Bella Ramsey's character on the HBO show.
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Over footage of SNL's spin on Luigi's mansion, Day added that the sketch included "a lot of little Easter eggs" for fans of the game (the mansion being one example).
"This has got to be one of the most ambitious pretapes, I would say," said director Mike Diva, who explained that he and the director of photography "shot the entire car chase with toy cars and a go-kart, just to kind of wrap our heads around how it's going to play out" — and to communicate their vision to the post-production team who "collaborated with crazy VFX teams from all over the country."
"If you're watching this...I guess we pulled it off," Diva told the camera. Indeed they did: In addition to Pascal's nomination, editors Ryan Spears and Christopher Salerno earned another for Outstanding Picture Editing For Variety Programming.
Watch "HBO Mario Kart Trailer" from Season 48, Episode 12 above, and check back daily through February 16 to see which sketch SNL has selected as the best of a given season. Stream all 50 seasons of Saturday Night Live on Peacock anytime.
