Marcello Hernández, the lone Latine cast member on Saturday Night Live, got some screen time on the most recent episode (January 28) alongside veteran SNL star Kenan Thompson and host Michael B. Jordan (Creed).
In the Towel Boys sketch, Hernández and Thompson played employees handing out towels at a resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. When we meet the duo, Thompson is telling Hernández how the Pixar animated movie Finding Nemo ends. Both are speaking in a pseudo-Dominican accent.
Hernández, who is actually Cuban-Dominican, seems shocked that Nemo is found. “That’s crazy, man,” he says. “It’s a big ocean and, like, a small little fish.”
After the small talk, Hernández and Thompson get back to work. When a resort guest asks for a towel, they find out she’s American and ask her if she is familiar with “Elle DeMenemes.” They are, of course, mispronouncing talk show host Ellen DeGeneres’ name.
Jordan joins the sketch playing the employees’ equally clueless supervisor with an equally questionable accent. Hernández asks him if they are going to be replaced as the resort’s towel boys by a machine. When Jordan tells them that he would never do that, Hernández and Thompson seem a bit disappointed since they wanted to try other jobs at the hotel.
“I want to fold the toilet paper into a little triangle,” Hernández said. “So, for the first wipe, it’s crazy.”
Later, when two “mamacitas,” a red-headed white woman and a Black woman, ask for towels, Hernández hands one to each of them. “One for the old Little Mermaid, and one for the new Little Mermaid,” he says.
Hopefully, Marcello Hernández will get some more time in the spotlight when Pedro Pascal makes his SNL debut as host on February 4.