July 29, 2019

For some reason, the "Donald Trump House of Wings" sketch from his 2004 SNL show is trending again.

I saw it first here (because I follow Anthony Scaramucci on Twitter, which is a mystery in itself):



But I see from Googling that a lot of people are talking about it. For example, at Townhall, 4 days ago, somebody wrote, "'Donald Trump's House Of Wings' Belongs In The Smithsonian" ("This video has been making the rounds on Twitter after a One America News video researcher rediscovered the gem").

"Am I saying that I'm a chicken wing expert? No. But I am telling you this, the wing is hands down the best part of the chicken. Better than the head. Better than the torso. Better than the back...."

Torso... now that's funny. By the way, for decades, I've found the word "torso" funny. There's the line "and the torso, even more so" in "Lydia the Tattoed Lady," and once, when I was in Rome, visiting the Vatican Museum, there were a lot of posters showing a statue that was only a torso, with the word "torso," and, after seeing these posters all over the place, I overheard a young woman, who must have seen what I'd been seeing, and she said, "What's with the torso?" Even now, 2 decades later, I hear her inflection in my head, and I laugh out loud.



I wish I could find the old Vatican Museum poster, but I do think this is the torso in question, the most famous torso at the Vatican Museum, the "Belvedere torso":
It was once believed to be a 1st-century BC original, but is now believed to be a copy from the 1st century BC or AD of an older statue, which probably dated to the early 2nd century BC..... Legend has it that Pope Julius II requested that Michelangelo complete the statue fragment with arms, legs and a face. He respectfully declined, stating that it was too beautiful to be altered, and instead used it as the inspiration for several of the figures in the Sistine Chapel....
So that's what's with the torso!



If you don't know what that is, but you just keep seeing that, with nothing but the word "Torso," it really does make you the perfect audience for the line "What's with the torso?"

ADDED: That kind of laughing — my laughing at "What's with the torso?" — is premised on ignorance. It's like what makes "Beavis and Butt-Head" funny. They're so stupid and don't know the value of anything. They look at things and say "What's that?" Now, I don't remember what, if anything, I knew about the Belvedere torso when I went to the Vatican Museum 20 years ago, but, obviously, I knew from the museum's cues that it was an important artwork and I felt calmly assured that it was something profound and dignified. But the young women — in the manner of "Beavis and Butt-Head" — were just seeing it as a torso with the word "torso" (and, I think, a this-way-to-the-torso arrow) and reacting to it as if it was a completely random torso in no particular context. And I am still laughing out loud.

CORRECTION: The post headline originally said 2015, but it was 2004.

51 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

We cannot laugh at that now. Trump is a Russian spy... who obstructed justice.
and - he's other bad things, too. Like racist.

chuck said...

Once upon a time, Hollywood could do entertainment.

Nonapod said...

It's sometimes difficult to not believe that we're living in a weird simulation and god is really a stoned IT worker who is just messing around with the parameters.

Wince said...

Little more of this (self aware and funny ) a little less racism!

Imploring "a little less racism" actually means you know it isn't really racism.

Bobb said...

Better is Virginia Weidler in The Philadelphia Story singing "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" to Jimmy Stewart.

CJinPA said...

Headline Correction? Link says it's from 2004 not 2015.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
We cannot laugh at that now. Trump is a Russian spy... who obstructed justice.
and - he's other bad things, too. Like racist.


7/29/19, 10:15 AM

All of the cast members who stood alongside Trump in those goofy chicken costumes now undoubtedly rant and rave about what a racist monster he is. Amazing he was able to keep it hidden for so long.

Hollywood loved Trump until he ran for president as a Republican.

CJinPA said...

(The cast in the video had left by 2015.)

SDaly said...

I still laugh at the Olympics torso post where someone (Chip Ahoy maybe) did the animation of Rosie the Robot from the Jetsons shouting at the TV "Rosie wants torso. Torso, torso, torso!)

(That is from memory, because I don't have time to try to find it.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Come on down to Trump's House O' Wings. The Wing is the best part! So good we felt that the torso, thigh, and everything else was taking up space that could be reserved for more wings! So Trump genetically modified the birds to have 25 wings apiece and excrete bleu cheese dressing!

Trump isn't just evil, he's mad scientist evil!

James said...

Hermes (from Futurama): What are you hacking off? Is it my torso?! It is! My precious torso!

madAsHell said...

The location info at the end of the video provides us with "If you've gone by Derek Jeter's TacoHole, then you've gone too far!!"

SDaly said...

Ah, here it is. The Olympics: "weirdly unsexy" from August 2008.

readering said...

Now find an application for my favorite toupee.

Infinite Monkeys said...

He seems exactly the same to me now as he was then. I don't think it's Trump who changed.

Ralph L said...

They did something similar with Derek Jeter.

Lots more meat on them plump thighs than any wing. What were the two fragments part of?

Bay Area Guy said...

Groucho was bleepin' funny! I grew up watching those black and white Marx Bros movies. Loved 'em.

Probably, 50% of what Groucho did in movies would now be considered a hate crime or #metoo violation on today's college campuses. Some fussy humorless Professor (unlike our gregarious hostess) would no doubt be triggered.

gilbar said...

SO, there was this guy
when he was a kid, people liked him (he was into sports and stuff!)
later, he got involved in the main stream media, and people LOVED HIM!
THEN, he got into politics, and people said he was a crazy buffoon
THEN he became President of the United States, and people said he was WORSE THAN HITLER!

Then, after he died; everyone said he was the Great Communicator, and was The Best President in their lifetime. Everyone, democrats and all, said that they'd ALWAYS LIKED HIM

Oh! and they forgot that back when they hated him, they'd made fun of the fact that he'd been divorced and that they'd made fun of his wives

rhhardin said...

Little more of this (self aware and funny ) a little less racism!

Clueless commentator.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Trump video is good too. Silly, but good. Self-deprecating humor works really well.

He's not quite Groucho, but, hey, he's trying!

wendybar said...

So bringing up a Congressmans district, which is a shithole, is RACIST?? So was the video that PBS is showing about all the rats RACIST?? Is the mayor saying she can smell the rats there RACIST??? WHAT isn't racist to these people?? Scaramucci should be ashamed of himself for spewing this lie like he belongs to the Propaganda arm of the Democrats (the Media)

Freeman Hunt said...

The tattooed lady song surely reminds you of Breaking Bad.

Bay Area Guy said...

I love it that Trump actually called Cummings a "racist":

Trump Twitter: "If racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership. His radical “oversight” is a joke!"

The Left has one big arrow in its quiver -- the "racist" arrow. They sling it often and recklessly. Trump is slinging it back.

wild chicken said...

Wow, looks just like him.

bagoh20 said...

The torso was originally commissioned by and stood in front of an Athenian Wing joint. It was a human torso with chicken wings and a MAGA hat. The penis was much larger, but it was vandalized and stolen by a lesbian vegan group.

wild chicken said...

Haha well done gilbar...

traditionalguy said...

Crazy thoughts: Trumpin Wings are all right wings. Did the Pope collect Torso as a memento of the way his terror squads tortured the Huguenots in France for being real Christians.

BamaBadgOR said...

Speaking of torsos missing a few parts = Anthony Scaramucci.

Quaestor said...

The Belvedere torso is a bit more than a torso, isn't it? From the pose, the complete statue was probably an Olympic pugilist like the Terme Boxer.

tim in vermont said...

Little more of this (self aware and funny ) a little less shouting racism!

Would be good advice for lefties.

Laslo Spatula said...

The torso statue seems to be man-spreading.

Fucking Greeks.

I am Laslo.

Sam L. said...

That House of Wings skit was FUNNY. The last time I watched SNL was in '78 or '79, or '80, whenever it was that Tim Kazurinsky did his "I Married A Chimp" skit.

OldManRick said...

For some reason, the "Donald Trump House of Wings" sketch from his 2004 SNL show is trending again.

The reason it's trending may be that today is National Chicken Wings Day - https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-chicken-wing-day-july-29/

traditionalguy said...

Hint: Belvedere Torso is a wrestler. The oldest sport known.

bagoh20 said...

I didn't realize the ancient Greeks had a steroid problem too. They started everything.

BUMBLE BEE said...

AAAAAAANNNNND The white power sign!!!

Webgrandma said...

When my son was a toddler, he loved the Muppet version of Lydia the tattooed lady: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHXZA_5XMJ4 He couldn't quite pronounce Lydia though, so it came out Wydia oh Wydia oh have you met Wydia? For some reason, this out of a 3-year-old's mouth was hilarious. We spent many an hour listening to him singing about this tattooed lady. I just hope he didn't quite get the gist of the lyrics.

pacwest said...

Back then Trump's house of wings only sold left wings. That's why he ran as a Republican. Now he can peddle all those leftover right wings. It's all about the money.

stevew said...

"It's sometimes difficult to not believe that we're living in a weird simulation and god is really a stoned IT worker who is just messing around with the parameters."

I can't help but think the same thing sometimes. On the Shrek DVD, the first one, there were some extras, one of which involved interviews with the technicians (programmers) that developed the movie. At some point early on they were having some issues with integrity in the character's images. For example, Donkey would occasionally pop into a wire-haired version - his fur spiked and long. Other times his big teeth would mysteriously appear mid-body or on his ass.

A lot of today's current events strike me the same way - befuddling when a guy like Rob Reiner shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, and starts ranting and raving and waving his arms around. Who effed up his wiring? Trump, of course. He's the bug in the system.

madAsHell said...

This was back when I considered Trump to be a bombastic buffoon. I just didn't know we needed one to be President!!

Francisco D said...


I never fully appreciated Trump's sense of humor until I saw that clip.

Kevin said...

Why is Anthony Scaramucci on TV these days?

It's because he doesn't argue when the host says Trump is racist.

As long as you let the host get away with that, you can say anything you like afterward.

That's the game that's being played.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

If you passed Derek Jeter's Taco Hole, you've gone too far.


Don' I know it.

narciso said...


time to memory hole this:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-baltimore-disaster-20161109-story.html

EsoxLucius said...

The funny thing for an anti-anti-Trumper like me is that the Cheeto in chief is an inverse-Goldwater, driving out the racial, religious, and tea party con men out of the party. When his bloated carcass and short coattails shamble off the stage, he will crater the Republican party in a way not seen since Pete Wilson ran in California. It was a good run from Honest Abe the rail splitter to Dishonest Don the race splitter, but the new party will not suffer the fools that it's now constituted of. I only hope the Democrats don't screw it up.

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...

Never understood the Marx Brothers. Harpo creeps me out completely. As soon as he comes on screen I leave the room or change the channel. Groucho is OK in small doses and in some sketches but a little goes a long way.

Chico I think is the funniest and most likable of the lot.

Gummo and Zeppo are both very nice but, as straight men/patsies, kind of unremarkable.

I don't get the Three Stooges either though I know a lot of people think they are hilarious.

John Henry

Michael K said...

I only hope the Democrats don't screw it up.

What a tragedy that would be, troll.!

h said...

Ahh Lydia. Perhaps someone can post a link to a sound file of a Mazurka in Jazz (or Mah-zoy-ker).

Quaestor said...

I don't get the Three Stooges either though I know a lot of people think they are hilarious.

Same here. A guy with a bad haircut bashing another guy with a bad haircut in the head with a blunt instrument is funny only up to a point. After the 25th ker-thunk it grows decidedly stale.

gilbar said...

A guy with a bad haircut bashing another guy with a bad haircut in the head with a blunt instrument is funny only up to a point. After the 25th ker-thunk it grows decidedly stale

Yes, BUT! after the 125th ker-thunk it grows decidedly hilarious!

madAsHell said...

A guy with a bad haircut bashing another guy with a bad haircut in the head with a blunt instrument is funny only up to a point. After the 25th ker-thunk it grows decidedly stale.

What about Abbott and Costello?? They had fun with words!!