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Nate Bargatze's "Washington's Dream 2" SNL Sketch Skewers American English
While the Season 49 original poked fun at U.S. weights and measures, Host Bargatze's October 5 sequel took on America's odd figures of speech.
When Nate Bargatze made his Saturday Night Live debut in Season 49, it went so well he was asked back to host again just under one year later. And his new October 5 episode quickly served up a sequel to Bargatze's biggest breakout sketch, which was one of last season's most-watched to date. "Washington's Dream 2" takes on another facet of American culture that our founding fathers couldn't have predicted: The way we "do our own thing with the English language."
The sketch finds George Washington (Nate Bargatze) rallying his troops (Season 50 cast members Bowen Yang, Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson, and James Austin Johnson) once again, as they make their historic trek across the Delaware River in 1776. While the original poked fun at our unique, hard-to-explain terms for numbers and measures, Washington now extols the virtues of how we spell things and tend to name animals something different after they've become food.
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Nate Bargatze's George Washington explains American English
"I dream that one day our great nation will have a word for the number 12. We shall call it a dozen," Bargatze's Washington decrees.
"And what other numbers will we have a word for?" a soldier asks.
"None," Washington replies. "Only '12' shall have its own word, because we are free men, and we will be free to spell some words two different ways." Which ones? "Doughnut, and the name 'Jeff'," he explains, with the latter options being "the short way with the J and the stupid way with the G."
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"We will also have two names for animals: One when they're alive and a different one when they become food," Washington later explains. "So cows will be 'beef.' Pigs will be 'pork.'"
"And chickens, sir?" Yang's soldier asks.
"That one stays. Chickens are 'chicken'," says Washington. "And we will create our own foods, and name them what we want. Like the hamburger."
"Made of ham, sir?"
"If it only were that simple," Washington clarifies. "A hamburger is made of beef, just as a 'buffalo wing' is made of chicken." While he's quick to assure them that a hot dog isn't made from canine, he declares that "A real American would never want to know what's in a hot dog, just as they will never know why."
Watch "Washington's Dream 2" from Season 50, Episode 2 above, and stream every episode of Saturday Night Live on Peacock anytime.
SNL's "Washington's Dream" sequel was also co-written by Mikey Day
Like the original, "Washington's Dream 2" was co-written by Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell, with Mike DiCenzo, Seidell confirmed in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
During Mikey Day's May 6 visit to Late Night with Seth Meyers, Meyers praised the first sketch, deeming it "kind of perfect."
"I don't often do this, but I walked up to your office, I wanted to let you guys know I was so insanely jealous when I saw it," Meyers told Day.
"It was fun to do — Streeter is obsessed with history, so this was his ode to America's weird customs and such," Day said.
