Saturday Night Live accused of airing virtually identical sketch to CBC comedy piece

The Prophet Muhammad isn’t exactly a subject for comedy standards, but two nearly identical sketches are raising questions over a segment from last weekend’s Saturday Night Live.

The NBC TV show, run by Canadian producer Lorne Michaels, is accused by some of copying a comedy skit that appeared months ago on CBC’s This Hour has 22 Minutes.

The subject even made news headlines in the National Post , which echoed the question making the buzz on social media: Did SNL steal a sketch about the Prophet Muhammad from This Hour Has 22 Minutes?

One blogger wrote an item featuring the video clips from both under the title Saturday Night Live’s Draw Muhammad Sketch Virtually Identical to Bit from Canadian Comedy show.

People commented on social media sites Saturday night that the skit was a carbon copy of the Canadian piece that aired in January.

Calls and emails to NBC’s PR department were not immediately returned on Monday. CBC’s head of Public Relations referred the questions to her Toronto colleague, who did not immediately respond.

Here’s a summary of both comedy segments so you can decide:

SNL Sketch

Saturday Night Live’s segment used the Pictionary game show as the backdrop. In it, the contestant was asked to draw The Prophet Muhammad.

The skit had host Reese Witherspoon and SNL actor Bobby Moynihan team up with Kenan Thompson to win $1 million.

Moynihan was the first up to draw and immediately panicked because his card instructed him to draw “The Prophet Muhammad.”

After refusing to draw, Thompson steps up but also makes excuses not to draw and throws the pen away rather than draw. The time runs out, but Witherspoon is still able to guess correctly without seeing a drawing.

This Hour has 22 Minute Sketch

Turn the clock back to January when CBC’s This Hour has 22 Minutes used Win, Lose or Draw as its game show parody.

Comedian Shawn Majunder plays the host and tells cast member Mark Critch he has a chance to win $1 million.

Critch and the home audience are the only ones able to hear when Critch is told he has to draw Muhammad.

After wrestling with the idea, he refuses to draw anything. Despite that, his partner correctly guesses Muhammad as the subject and they win $1 million.

On Twitter, Majunder quipped: “Wow if only we could steal some of their (SNL’s) budget.” and he ended with the hashtag #GreatMindsThinkAlike.

Critch also took to social media to say this isn’t the first time SNL has ripped off This Hour.

“This has happened a few times both ways but this is the (closest) I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The sketches both tackled a touchy subject.

After all, publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad sparked radical Islamists to attack the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, killing staff members and the editor. And only a week ago in the U.S.,there was a deadly attack in Texas before an anti-muslim event. Two gunmen opened fire during an art contest which asked people to draw Muhammad. The competition was held by the controversial organization The American Freedom Defence Initiative.

At the time of the first attack, scholars of Islam said the reason the drawings caused such outrage was because it is blasphemous to draw any likeness of the founder of Islam.

Not knowing about the comedy ripoff angle, Britain’s Independent published a story after the NBC program aired with the headline: Reese Witherspoon’s Saturday Night Live ‘Draw Muhammad’ sketch courts controversy: Is it 'blasphemous’ or 'hilarious’?

Clearly, people on social media were also split by the subject matter. Some took offence to a comedy program making a joke out of a religious figure, while others said it was about time that Saturday Night Live aired something funny.