Quick Take: Key & Peele, "Key & Peele"
"We have to adjust our blackness." - Keegan
Review: Key & Peele, "Key & Peele"
(S0101) Here's how I imagine the idea for Comedy Central's new sketch show, Key & Peele, was born:
Comedy Central Executive #1: Hey, bro. Got any ideas for new shows?
Comedy Central Executive #2: Nope. You?
Comedy Central Executive #1: Nope.
Long pause....
Comedy Central Executive #1: Well, what shows have we succeeded with in the past? Maybe we can just kind of repackage them.
Comedy Central Executive #2: Chappelle's Show was pretty popular.
Comedy Central Executive #1: And Tosh is killin' it right now.
Comedy Central Executive #2: You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?
Comedy Central Executive #1: Asian hookers?
Comedy Central Executive #2: No, dumbass. What if we took a white guy like Tosh and a black guy like Chappelle, put 'em together and gave them a sketch show. People love all that black/white stuff.
Comedy Central Executive #1: I like where your head's at. But peep this: What if the hosts were both black and white.
Comedy Central Executive #2: Dude, you just blew my mind.
Comedy Central Executive #1: I know, right? So how's about those Asian hookers?
FIN
If you hadn't guessed by now, Key & Peele is a sketch show starring, well, Key and Peele -- Keegan Key and Jordan Peele, to be more specific. Not that my specificity matters much, because unless you're a big MADtv fan, chances are you haven't heard of either of these biracial bros. While you might not be familiar with either of their names, you might recognize their faces from shows like the aforementioned MADtv, Children's Hospital, Reno 911!, and The League.
While in my little intro, I compared (in a roundabout way) Key & Peele to Chappelle's Show and Tosh.0, the show Key & Peele most resembles is In The Flow With Affion Crockett. Key and Peele stand on-stage in front of an audience, tell a few jokes or a humorous anecdote, then awkwardly transition into a sketch. This seems like the format du jour for sketch show's these days.
Like In The Flow, Key & Peele's sketches are heavy on impersonations. And, again, like Crockett, these impressions are, at times, spot on. Unfortunately, very few of the accompanying jokes are the least bit funny.
Jordan does three different bits about Lil' Wayne getting shanked or raped in prison, and not one of them elicits so much as a smile.
The one (relatively) funny bit comes right at the end of the premiere. Jordan does a damn good impression of President Obama. Peele's Obama is politically correct with a long fuse, unwilling or unable to offend even his harshest critics. While Peele speechifies, Key serves as his his "anger translator." As Obama continues to kowtow, the anger translator gets increasingly revved up.
If that doesn't sound like the funniest sketch in the world to you, it's because it isn't. It's simply a good idea, executed properly. Unfortunately, this Obama sketch is the only example of those two things -- ideas and execution -- coming together (in perfect harmony?) in the whole episode.
Gotta admit, I liked Key & Peele. The opening sketch where they keep want to call their wife a "beeeeetch" behind her back was pretty inspired. And Peele should be on SNL just so we can get rid of Fred Armisen's increasingly lazy impression of Prez Obama.