Sitcom Reboot

Mara Schultz… Cecily Strong

Jay Paultodd… John Mulaney

[Starts with Hollywood Update intro]

Male voice: Welcome to Hollywood Update. You’re in a hotel and you’ve just turned on the TV and this is happening.

[Cut to Mara in her set]

Mara: It’s official, Hollywood has reboot fever. “Roseanne”, “Will & Grace”, “Full House”, “Murphy Brown”, you think, they’ve done them all. But there’s one more sitcom returning to the small screen. 1987’s “Switcheroo”. I’m here with that show’s creator, Jay Paultodd.

[Jay is sitting beside Mara]

Jay: Such a pleasure.

Mara: Jay, for those too young to remember, describe the original “Switcheroo”.

Jay: Well, Switcheroo was a family show about a father and son who switched bodies. You know? But really, it was about so much more.

Mara: Let’s take a look.

[Cut to Switcheroo intro song]

Intro song: You thought being a kid was pretty tough
You thought being a dad was too
then a witch came along, did a magic spell
and now we got a switcheroo

no one knows our secret
guess we’ll have to keep it
what they gonna do?
it’s a switcheroo

Dad goes to school
son goes to work
and the son has sex with the mom

What you gonna do?
it’s a switcheroo!

[Cut back to Mara and Jay]

Mara: The show was not popular. Why do you think that is?

Jay: I think viewers expected us to focus on a different aspect of the Switcheroo. You know, perhaps seeing the son trying to work at his dad’s office as an astronaut and the dad trying to make the son’s football team. Instead, we focused exclusively on the sexual ramification of the Switcheroo. Let’s watch a clip.

Mara: Oh, we don’t we have to.

Jay: No. Roll it.

[Cut to a clip from Switcheroo. A grown man wearing kiddish clothes comes in home on a skatevoard]

Beck: What’s up?

Mom: Honey, where have you been all day?

Beck: I went on a shopping spree with dad’s– I mean, my credit card.

Mom: Well, you remember, it’s Wednesday.

Beck: Oh, yeah. Macaroni night.

Mom: No. It’s our night to try.

[Mom hold’s Beck’s hand and tries to take him to the bedroom]

Beck: Oh, my god.

[Video stops]

Song: What you gonna do, it’s a switcheroo!

[Cut to Mara and Jay]

Mara: Now, the original Switcheroo didn’t talk much about politics, but 2018 reboot dives right in.

Jay: We felt we had to. I guess the opening shot is a close up of a newspaper that says, “Trump is president.” And then we widen out and we’re like, forget all that. And then the mom switcheroos with the dog and I don’t need to tell you what happens next.

Mara: Was it hard to get the original cast to get back together?

Jay: Well, we couldn’t get everyone. You know, little Andy Cunan who played the son, he’s left the business. And the rest of the cast, well, I see almost every week in group. Dr. Gross says it’s important for me to be there so they can confront me.

Mara: Why put everyone through this again?

Jay: I think you’re asking me why I like to make America laugh. Well, Like most artists, I’m a product of my influences. “I love Lucy”, “Dick Van Dyke”, “My Mom Who Would Wash My Penis With Scalding Hot Water.” And of course, “Mad Magazine.”

Mara: The show is set in St. Louis but due to legal reasons, you shot it in Port-au-Prince.

Jay: Yeah. For a few weeks, and then even the Hasians were like, “No dice.” It was so weird. A general walked into my office in full military epaulettes and he said in thick patois, I won’t do the voice. Well I’ll do the voice a little. He said, “No money can make me forget god’s laws.” And that’s why we’re here now in studio 1-A on hundred Switcheroo avenue, Jones Town, Guyana.

Mara: Any other surprises or the reboot?

Jay: Well, for the first time ever, we’re pleased to announce a crossover episode.

Mara: With who?

Jay: Date Line.

Mara: Okay. Thanks for being with us, Mr. Paultodd. And I wanna tell our viewers that while he left after the clips, during them, he stared at me with no expression.

Jay: I make a lot of people very happy.

Mara: Goodnight.

[The End]