Saturday Night Live makes a hilarious attempt at explaining why the Try Guys cheating scandal became major news in a sketch from the NBC variety show’s second season 48 episode.
Starring Bowen Yang as Eugene Lee Yang, Mikey Day as Keith Habersberger and Andrew Dismukes as Zach Kornfeld — YouTubers known as the Try Guys —the sketch kicks off as a CNN report with SNL cast member Ego Nwodimserving as the cable news show’s host andSNL episode hostBrendan Gleesonas an on-air correspondent.
Gleeson’s live White House report is abruptly interrupted by a faux interview — recreating a real video from the actual Try Guys release last week — as the trio addresses the fallout of former Try Guys’ member and “Wife Guy” Ned Fulmer’s cheating scandal.
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“I’m getting breaking news that the Try Guys have now responded to the whole Ned Fulmer situation,” Gleeson states. “It’s obviously an evolving story, but CNN can confirm that the Try Guys have released an official YouTube video clapping back at ex-Try Guy Ned Fulmer, the ‘Wife Guy’ Try Guy.”
“Hedisrespected the brandby making out with one of the ‘Food Babies’ at theHarry Stylesconcert,” he adds. “It’s a sad day indeed.”
Addressing how the group —originally launched as a Buzzfeed outfit before venturing out on their own as a brand — likely isn’t as well known as the wide coverage of their scandal seemingly implied, Gleeson’s reporter asks, “How do you not know The Try Guys?”
“Theseare the Buzzfeed pranksterswho try stuff, like trying fingernail polish or weird haircuts,” he adds. “They even tried eating bugs!”
The sketch then cuts to a video of the three remaining Try Guys — Yang, Habersberger and Kornfeld —in a recreated skit of the trio’s video response and statement, released Oct. 4 and entitled ‘what happened.’ Like the video it’s based on, the three YouTubers acknowledge that Ned Fulmer — who was caught cheating on his wife Ariel in late September after a Reddit post featuring a video of Fulmer with another woman emerged —is no longer part of the group. (Ariel was also part of theTry Guys brand as part of the podcast and YouTube series Try Wives Wine Time.)
“There’s a lot of anger on this couch,” Yang’s Lee says. “We had no choice and we hope he is somewhere on his back with a bullet in his brain and belly.”
“He committed the heinous act of having a consensual kiss and not telling us, his friends,” Day, playing Habersberger, added.
Dismukes’ Kornfeld called the scandal —which resulted in the real Try Guys not only confirming Fulmer’s departure but editing him from past videos —as the “battle of our lives.”
In a video statement in response to Fulmer’s actions, the trio confirmed he would not be returning to teh group, with Habersberger noting that “what happened, it betrayed our trust, it was a workplace violation. It would mean to all the people in the office who knew what they knew … that we weren’t being true to who we said we are in our values.”
“Very simply, he would have been removed. It would not have been this public spectacle, we would have tried to avoid that for the sake of the other people involved but it happened how it happened,” he added, while addressing whether the group has been previously aware of Fulmer’s cheating.
At one point, the group’s review of the allegations against Fulmer and his eventual firing from the group was described as something that “felt like a breakup,” with the trio acknowledging an array of “emotions,” including anxiety, confusion, anger and sadness.
As for whether Fulmer would be replaced, the group said that there will be no new official Try Guy.
“We will have new people that come in and out,” Kornfeld said. “I don’t want to put the pressure on anyone to say, ‘This is the new Try Guy and he is the replacement.’ That’s not fair to them.”
On Sept. 27, Fulmer addressed the accusations in an Instagram post, calling it “a consensual workplace relationship.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CjBYMTov2-m/
“Family should have always been my priority but I lost focus,” he wrote. “I’m sorry for any pain that my actions may have caused to the guys and the fans but most of all Ariel. The only thing that matters right now is my marriage and my marriage and my children, and that’s where I’m going to focus my attention.”
Fulmer, Yang, Habersberger and Kornfield began their careers as the Try Guys brand with a Buzzfeed series that originally launched in 2014 before the group, like other Buzzfeed outfits, broke off into an independent brand of family-friendly YouTube pranks and comedy. The group’s YouTube page, launched in 2018, has upwards of 8 million subscribers.
