Entertainment

Jay Pharoah Imitates His Fellow Comedians

by Marisa LaScala

Jay Pharoah is known as one of the better impressionists of the current cast of Saturday Night Live, but rarely does he get the chance to do so many impressions in a single go. But, during the Weekend Update segment of the Jonah Hill-hosted episode on March 5, Pharoah got to do his densest set of SNL impressions yet. The news peg wasn't much: It has something to do with Kat Williams criticizing fellow comedian Kevin Hart. Pharoah came on to talk about it, and he said the two got to work it out in the secret meeting of African American comedians that occurs semi-regularly at Eddie Murphy's house.

From there, Pharoah acted out the events that took place at said secret meeting (which supposedly took place in the bowling alley of Murphy's house, which isn't really relevant, but it was my favorite detail of the bit). He did this by launching into a series of impressions of other comedians — and they were all amazing. Seriously. They were close-your-eyes-and-he-sounds-exactly-like-them, bang-on impressions. They came one right after another — Kat Williams, Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Tracy Morgan, Hannibal Buress, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Murphy himself, and others — and each one was more spot-on than the last.

I hate it when SNL takes a good bit and recurs it to death, but I hope this isn't the end of Pharoah's re-enactments of these secret comedian movies. I could watch him do this all day, even if it seems exhausting for him. I mean, surely there's someone he hasn't done an impression of yet, right? He can sweep the corners next time.

Watch the full video below:

Image: Dana Edelson/NBC