SNL's "Beautiful Girls" Sketch Is a Love Letter to the Men of the SNL Season 49 Cast
"We love to watch them pose in their tan boy clothes," Jake Gyllenhaal sang to James Austin Johnson and Michael Longfellow in the follies farce.
Ziegfeld Follies? It was more like Jake Gyllenhaal Follies when the Presumed Innocent actor hosted Saturday Night Live's Season 49 finale.
Any Gyllenhaal fan knows that he can carry a tune — he starred in a Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park With George, after all. He also showcased his singing ability in Studio 8H when he closed out his May 18 opening monologue with a Boyz II Men cover before lending vocals to the "Beautiful Girls" sketch.
Taking place in the Tick Tack Club, the sketch features Gyllenhaal as Billy Harper, a nightclub emcee starring a trio of sparkly showgirls played by SNL Season 49 cast members Ego Nwodim, Chloe Fineman, and Sarah Sherman. While Billy sings about the beautiful girls, it turns out they're not the main attraction of the show.
RELATED: Kristen Wiig's Emmy-Nominated "Jumanji" SNL Sketch Gave Us a New Phobia
The SNL Season 49 cast's men get their flowers in "Beautiful Girls"
"But they're not the only creature that we're here to feature," Billy croons, as a line of chorus boys — Season 49 cast members Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson, Andrew Dismukes, Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, and Marcello Hernández — take the stage.
"If you seek grace and poise, then you have to meet our boys," he sings, as they enter from either side of the stage wearing not bedazzled corsets, but button-down shirts and khakis.
"Have you seen such beautiful boys? Luscious, lovely, gorgeous boys," Billy continues, as the cast members flex their muscles — and dance moves! — behind him. "We love to watch them pose in their tan boy clothes. They preen, they glance, they dance, they're beautiful boys."
"Well, it looks like they're finally giving the ladies something to look at. I just wish their costumes and bodies were a little nicer," an audience member, played by Heidi Gardner, says to her husband, Broward (Kenan Thompson). "Looks like they didn't even try."
RELATED: How to Enter the SNL Ticket Lottery to Watch SNL Live From NYC
"If you could have your pick, choose the one with the biggest... heart!" Billy continues his love letter to the men of the SNL cast. "They sit, they kneel, they're real, they're beautiful boys."
By the end of the performance, Broward is overtaken by their beauty, hopping on stage to close out the number surrounded by the men in their business casual looks, and they surround him with giant feathers.
Can you blame him? SNL ended Season 49 on a hysterical high note with this fellas follies farce.
