Make Gibbons Laugh #6
My good pal, Patrick, and I, our junior and senior years of college, communicated largely with just Kyle Mooney dialogue. (I’m sure this was really fun for anyone around us, whether or not they’d watched, or even liked, Kyle’s videos.). We mostly drew from I Hate This Song or Roomies or Sporty.
Last week, I thought back to Sporty, to Benjuls and Patrick and the need to Get Loose For Championship Division, when I came across THIS CLIP — which I can only assume now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection:
There’s the obvious connection: a comedian performing Crazed Man-Child Sports Nut. But it sure goes deeper:
1. Steven Castillo, the cheeky Russell Westbrook fan, writes on SNL and contributes to many of the show’s most deranged sketches. Which, naturally, often feature Kyle Mooney.
2. Patrick’s wife, Ella, is a real, living, breathing Oklahoma City Thunder fan, a diehard one, the only one I’ve met in the wild (and is probably the most famous Thunder fan not named Bill Hader).
And 3. When I sent the clip to— oh, I dunno—35 people, the most common responses I got were some variations of “didn’t expect that ending!! Hahahah!!!!” or “Will, that was you after the Mookie trade,” or “So Patrick’s really a Thunder fan these days, huh?”
Watching “FUCK THIS RUSSELL WESTBROOK TRADE,” I can’t not think of Kyle Mooney’s Sporty as its tamer, spiritual prequel. But I want to now celebrate FUCK THIS RUSSELL WESTBROOK TRADE on its own, in a vacuum, as much as I can.
Without further ado, here’s my running diary for this masterpiece, the Starry Night of Flustered Fan Films (3F), as I watch now for the 347th time this week (and yes, it’s Starry Night and not, say, Mona Lisa, because, like with any Van Gogh, there’s feverish energy, it’s all conceived shockingly quickly, and there’s some solid skin/ear/butt exposed):
0:00: It’s such a small detail, but hitting RECORD during the video will never not be funny to me. It sets the tone: this guy is too frazzled and upset to have the patience or wherewithal to edit anything. Record. Rant. Stop recording.
0:01: There’s something about the Thunder logo on his chest (the black design on that shade of blue) that, on first glance, looks like a nasty patch of sweat. We quickly realize that that isn’t sweat. But he’s definitely sweating. Definitely worked up. Hair is visibly damp. Pits must be ripe. If Old Spice gave the room an official smell, it’d be, “Middle School Band Practice On A Hot Afternoon.”
0:01: I’ve watched war documentaries where people have more life in their eyes than this. Just astonishing. Completely dead inside.
0:03: The immediate use of “we”—yes, WE traded longtime Thunder superstar, Russell Westrbrook, that the blood from this monstrosity will forever be on OUR hands (what I would give to witness Steven Castillo’s reaction to the other Thunder monstrosity: when Durant signed with the Warriors.)
0:05: The way he starts to lose it, verbally. Instead of “to the Houston Rockets,” we get...whatever it is he just said.
0:06: The way he tenses his hands and arms, so rigidly, and doesn’t, or can’t, lift them up, just holds them out at such a stiff, awkward angle —I’m sure if you Google “EXASPERATED,” this frame would appear.
0:07 - 0:11: Distraught Tik Tok dance ensues. I don’t know the name of this Tik Tok dance. But I do know this is some immaculate Gen-Z satire: my great-aunt Evelyn died, and I’m posting this somber video for her here. And I’ll throw in some viral dance moves and some “Kony2012” hashtags just to get enough hits and likes here....for Evelyn, of course. In her honor. It’s what she’d want. And I’ll make weird eye contact the entire time.
0:11: That face! He’s really nailing this part of the audition for Sad Child in Old Yeller 2: No More Yelling.
0:12: The pause! The drama! What a choice! What’ll he do next?!
0:14: Just when you think he can’t take it to another level—in volume and despair—he does. CHRIS PAUL (“the audacity! Nay, the temerity!” —Gulman, 2016).
0:15-0:18: (see: 0:07 - 0:11).
0:19-0:20: The pause! The drama! What a choice! What’ll he do next?!
0:21 - 0:24: (see 0:07 - 0:11). Rule of 3s!
0:25: Wait. Waiiiiiiit. Whaaaaaaat.
0:26: When a doctor taps your knee, you kick your leg out. When Steven Castillo yanks off his rip-away sweats, I laugh. It’s an involuntary reaction. It just happens. Every time.
0:27-0:29: This all could have ended RIGHT at the tushy reveal. It could’ve! It really could’ve! But it does NOT! There are two whole, eternally-long seconds where nothing’s happening, he’s not moving, and we’re just staring at his fanny. His Donald Rump-sfeld. His Stanley Tushy. And the lingering makes it even funnier.