‘Black Panther’ Parody Airs on ‘Saturday Night Live’

Black Panther has become a bonafide phenomenon over the past month, recently crossing the $1 billion mark at the global box office. And now it looks like Saturday Night Live is also getting in on the fun.

In last night’s episode, the sketch series brought to life a “new scene” from Black Panther, which you can check out above. The sketch sees T’Challa(played by Chris Redd) traveling to the ancestral plane, and becoming acquainted with his various family members. Among them is Uncle M’Butu (Kenan Thompson), who spends his time in the afterlife flipping burgers on a grill and making corny jokes.

The sketch is sure to delight fans for a myriad of reasons, besides just being pretty darn funny. For those who have seen Black Panther, there are plenty of homages and references, from M’Butu begging T’Challa to lend him more kimoyo beads to a pretty great joke about the ancestral plane’s purple hues.

Plus, host Sterling K. Brown plays T’Challa’s great, great grandfather, something that has a little bit of irony considering his actual Black Panther character, N’Jobu.

As fans who have seen the film know, Brown plays a surprisingly pivotal role in the film, with his death somewhat instigating the conflict between T’Challa and Erik Kilmonger (Michael B. Jordan). But as Brown sees it, his onscreen son was not as villainous as some have interpreted.

“The whole concept of Killmonger, is he a villain or does he represent us — especially African-Americans?” Brown said during a recent interview. “He is a villain because, while his intentions, and N’Jobu’s intentions for that fact, are honorable, they didn’t necessarily go about it [in a way] that would actually bring about the change that they want.”

“He wasn’t trying to create a legacy.” Brown continued. “He was like ‘I want this for myself,’” Brown said. “That’s where the intention gets confused with personal ambition, but what he was able to illuminate … is that he is not without a point.”

Black Panther is in theaters now. Avengers: Infinity War lands in theaters on April 27, and Ant-Man and The Wasp soars into theaters on July 6. Captain Marvel hits theaters on March 8, 2019, followed by Avengers 4 on May 3, 2019.

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