Josh Brolin's Emmy-Winning "Shrimp Tower" SNL Sketch Is Slapstick Cinema
The regency ball "mini-movie" won Outstanding Production Design For A Variety Or Reality Series.
On September 7, Saturday Night Live was victorious at the 2024 Creative Arts Emmys. The long-running series won in six categories, including three wins for Ryan Gosling's April 13 episode alone. Episodes hosted by Kristen Wiig, and Timothée Chalamet also earned honors in their respective categories.
The March 9, 2024 episode hosted by Brolin won Outstanding Production Design For A Variety Or Reality Series — and after watching the meticulously-crafted "Shrimp Tower" sketch, it's easy to see why.
The Bridgerton-inspired pretaped sketch takes place at an elegant regency ball in Vienna 1893. Brolin stars as Kinsky, a noble count who, while trying to impress archduchess Sophie Von Klaustenberg (SNL Season 49 cast member Sarah Sherman), invented a magnificent new way to display shrimp: the shrimp tower.
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Kinsky is supposed to be looking for a bride, but he becomes obsessed with his new invention for "the thinking man's mozzarella sticks." He'll do anything to keep it from accidentally crashing down — even pushing Sophie out of a ballroom window after she gets too close.
Upon her disheveled return to the ball, Sophie tells Kinsky, "I’ve seen the way you passionately protect the things you love. And if you can love me as much as you love that shrimp tower, well, then I’d be the luckiest girl in Europe."
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Seems like it's a happy ending for the couple until, while celebrating, Kinsky accidentally hits the tower with his hand, resulting in the glasses and shrimp crashing to the floor. As Sophie and the other partygoers continue to toast to her new engagement, Kinsky gives himself the same punishing treatment he subjected his almost-fiancee to minutes earlier.
Written as a live sketch, Josh Brolin's "Shrimp Tower" became a "mini-movie"
"Shrimp Tower" was originally supposed to be a live sketch. But as director Mike Diva revealed in a Behind the Sketch video, once "it got turned into a pretape, we really got the opportunity to amp up the scale of it and turn it into a sort of Barry Lyndon-esque mini-movie."
With this production value we should be able to log "Shrimp Tower" on our Letterboxd. The "mini-movie" look of the period piece certainly comes across on screen, leading to a much-deserved Emmy win.
Watch "Shrimp Tower" from Season 49, Episode 14 of Saturday Night Live above, and stream every season on Peacock anytime.
