Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 34: Episode 13
08m: Rosario Dawson / Fleet Foxes
Da Learnin’ Train
Carla Da Funkee Conductah…Rosario Dawson
Riznatch…Kenan Thompson
Jesse…Andy Samberg
Dominique…Abby Elliott
Hector…Bobby Moynihan
Harry Connick Jr….Jason Sudeikis
Deejay…Bill Hader
Mailman…Fred Armisen
K…Will Forte
(The sketch opens with the Discover Kids logo.)
Announcer: You’re watching Discovery Kids. Which means you have so many channels, your children are guaranteed to find porn. Up next, it’s “Da Learnin’ Train!”
(The animated opening sequence for Da Learnin’ Train, a hip-hop based children’s show, begins. We see a train driving past beakers and letters.)
Theme singers: All aboard Da Learnin’ Train
Where learnin’ is our favorite games
And the dancing has just begun
On Da Learnin’ Train!
(Cut to the show’s studio, where the hostess, Carla Da Funkee Conductah, enters as a graffiti-covered train enters a graffiti-covered station. She wears overalls with a shoulder strap off and a clock around her neck.)
Carla: (Makes a pulling the whistle gesture) Whoo-whoo! Yo! Welcome to another fresh episode of Da Learnin’ Train, the show that puts the “kay” in education! I’m your hostess cupcake with the mostest rumpshake, Carla Da Funkee Conduktah. And with me, as always, is my sidekick in edumacation crime, Riznatch the Reading Racoon!
(We see Riznatch, a giant racoon holding a book and wearing a mortarboard and graduation gown.)
Riznatch: Yo, I got rabies for learning!
Carla: Now riding with us on the Learnin’ Train today are Jesse, Dominique, and Hector!
(Jesse, Dominic, and Hector, three hip-hop dancing kids with orange track suits, make their entrance to hip-hop music.)
Jesse: Word!
Dominique: Hey hey hey!
Hector: Word!
Carla: Yo! Let’s kick this show off right! Riznatch, tell our new friends about the power of books!
(The Deejay makes a few record scratches, introducing the next song, where Riznatch leads the other in dance.)
Riznatch: With a book you can do most anything,
It has a hundred uses that you hear me sing
You can wear it like a hat, you can swing it like a bat
You can use it as a chair, you can throw it in the airYou can dance on it! You can dance on it!
You can dance on top of a book!
(“DANCE ON TOP OF A BOOK!” appears on screen as Riznatch dances on the book he’s been carrying.)
Carla, Jesse, Dominique, and Hector: Word! Yeah!
(The Deejay makes some record scratches and raises his glasses at the camera.)
Voice-over: Lear-Lear-Lear-Learnin’!
Carla: Nice, Riznatch! I never knew you could do so much with a book! Now, the Learnin’ Train’s just getting out of the station, but before we pick up too much steam, let’s welcome a very special guest, Harry Connick, Jr.!
(Harry Connick, Jr. enters, to many “Yeah!”s from the cast.)
Harry Connick, Jr.: Well hey there, gang! How y’all doin’! You know I’m just thrilled to be here to promote early education, and Mister raccoon, I think you left off one very important use for books, and that’s readin’!
Riznatch: (Laughs nervously) Yeah I guess.
Carla: But we ain’t only about readin’, yo kids, let’s show this guest that we know mad math in the thunderdome! (puts her hands over her head as in ballet) Let’s do the math dance!
(The deejay makes some record scratches, then gestures to the camera as the song “Math Dance” is played, with the cast dancing along. The educational elements of the song are superimposed on the screen along with “MATH DANCE!”.)
Voice-over: Math! Digits!
It’s a math dance!
You take three and six and eight and two
And you put ’em all together and what do you get?
A math dance!
Then you’ve thirty minus four minus ten minus three
And what is left when you take it away?
A math dance!
An M-A-T-H-E Dance!
Cast of Da Learnin’ Train: Yeah!
Riznatch: I got rabies for learnin’!
Harry Connick, Jr.: (nonplussed) Okay now, see, you know I think it might actually be helpful if we actually try to solve those math problems and show kids how to add and subtract. And at the end of the song I think you might have misspelled the word “math.”
Jesse: Yo, yo, I’ll show you some spelling!
(Jesse dances to the music played by the Deejay.)
Riznatch and cast: Go Jesse! Go Jesse! Get your spell on! Get your spell on! Go Jesse! Get spell on! Yeah!
Jesse: Yeah, you just got schooled!
Harry Connick, Jr.: What? No I don’t think anyone here’s getting schooled. I don’t think they’ve even been inside of a school.
(Jesse give a dismissive gesture and walks away from Harry.)
Carla: Yo, this is the number two preschool hip-hop block party show on TV. I think we know what we doin’. (A record scratch and a train whistle is heard.) Oh snap, we got a visitor exquisitor!
Mailman: (disinterested) Yo yo yo, straight up. I got a delivery from Alphabet City, you know how I do. It’s a letter K, yo.
(The Deejay makes a record scratch and raises his glasses at the camera.)
Voice-over: K, K, K, Baby, ba-by!
(A giant letter K makes his entrance and begins dancing and rapping with the cast.)
K: Yo I’m the letter K and I’m here to say
You can make words with me every night and day
Carla: Like which words?
K: Like these words, (the words appear on screen)
Like Kite and Key
And Kouch and Krunk
And Kween and Kat
And Kookies and Kream!
(K dances in a circle as the rest of the cast cheers him on.)
Carla, Riznatch, Jesse, Dominique, and Hector: Go K! Go K! You’re the number! You’re the number! You’re the number!
K: Ooooooh, K!
Cast: Yeah!
(The Deejay wraps up the song and points his index and middle finger together in a gesture.)
Voice-over: Kill-kill-kill-killin’ it!
Carla: (To Harry) A’ight, yo, what you think of the Learnin’ Train now?
Harry Connick, Jr.: Well I think it’s bad. Almost none of those words even start with the letter K.
Riznatch: Oooh, snap! He’s about to set me off!
Carla: Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo yo, don’t let him set you off, a’ight? Let us spell him off!
(The Deejay makes a record scratch to start the next number and shakes his lips.)
Voice-over: S-s-s-spelling bee, G!
(The cast holds up cards with letters as they call them out.)
Carla: Spell it out now!
Riznatch: L!
Jesse: U!
Dominique: R!
Hector: M!
K: I!
Carla: N!
Riznatch: And yo, what’s that spell?
All six: Learnin’!
(The deejay wraps up the song and turns his head with the record.)
Voice-over: S-s-s-spell dat!
Harry Connick, Jr.: Hey, can any of you read or write?
(The cast is lost for an answer, apparently they can’t. Jesse actually shakes his head no. Harry shrugs and Riznatch stands in front of him.)
Riznatch: (frustrated) I got rabies for learnin’!
Harry Connick, Jr.: Okay, okay, you know what? Look, I’m gonna get you guys a tutor.
Carla: All right.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Yeah.
Carla: I hope he can dance! (Carla and the cast begin dancing.)
Harry Connick, Jr.: No.
Carla: A’ight, we about to take a break so stay learnin’ and stay on the train!
Voice-over: Chug-chug-chug-the-the-the-Learnin’ Train!
(The Learnin’ Train logo comes on screen as the segment fades out.)
Submitted by: Tony DuMont
