‘SNL’ Presents ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ — Martin Short & Bowen Yang’s Version

A local community theater director, accurately portrayed by Martin Short, comes in to critique a performance of A Charlie Brown Christmas in SNL‘s Peanuts Christmas sketch that aired Saturday night (Dec. 21).

The SNL ensemble is full of spot-on spoofs of Peanuts characters in the sketch (hats off to the wardrobe and props departments), and they’re bopping away to the classic theme song “Linus and Lucy.”

Drake Tuttle (Short, who hosted Saturday’s holiday episode of SNL) is joined by a self-proclaimed “genius” choreographer named Lestat (Bowen Yang). In full transparency, Tuttle discloses that they’ve been romantically involved. (They “used to date,” he says, “and our relationship is very weird.”)

“Your principal hired me to direct your pageant,” he tells the Peanuts crew, to protests that Charlie Brown is their director.

“And I’m sorry to say he’s dead,” Tuttle announces, pausing for dramatic effect before adding, “to me.”

Tuttle tries to give notes. Lestat tries to incorporate modern hip-hip into the production. Nothing quite goes their way, until they discover their star: Snoopy (Kenan Thompson).

The sketch arrives while the soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas from the Vince Guaraldi Trio, originally released in 1965, currently sits at No. 1 on the Billboard Kid Albums chart, thanks to the Christmastime popularity of the special.

Watch SNL‘s Peanuts Christmas below. For those watching with kids, be warned there’s some innuendo here, particularly when it comes to the jokes Short and Yang direct toward Schroeder — and unlike the actual animated Peanuts specials, what the grownups say can be heard on SNL‘s special.

For more holiday laughs, check out Saturday night’s Sábado Gigante Christmas Special sketch, and for a musical fix, don’t miss Hozier’s performance.