Here's an interesting case for you comedy sleuths: this past weekend SNL ran a short sketch entitled "Peyote", in which Andy Samberg is talked down from a ledge by Will Forte. The joke is that Samberg is on peyote, and he's not actually standing on a ledge-- he's standing on the sidewalk. Compare that skit to ImprovEverywhere's Suicide Jumper sketch, where a police officer tries to talk a man down from a three-foot ledge. The similarities between the pieces are striking-- but are they conclusive? Three possibilities occur to us:
1. The SNL writers did see the sketch and intentionally riffed on it.
2. They pulled a Kaavya Viswanathan and "accidentally internalized" something they saw on the web.
3. They came up with the same idea independently.
Which one was it? [Via OfficePirates, and tipsters on Gothamist Contribute.]
