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What does Marcello Hernández do on Saturday Night Live’s week off? Stand-up comedy in Syracuse University’s Goldstein Auditorium.

The SU community welcomed Hernández with open arms. Students waited in line for up to two hours before the doors opened on Saturday night. First to arrive were sophomores Nathaly Juarez Meza and Lupe Rosas, who dressed in homemade “Te Amo Marcello” shirts.

“I’m a Latina, so him joking about different things and our culture is just amazing to see, especially here, seeing it here in Syracuse, I think it’s just an amazing thing,” Juarez Meza said.

Hernández headlined the Student Association’s Latine Heritage Month Comedy Night, along with opener comedians Matt Richards and Asha Ward. The sold-out event was the finale of Latine Heritage Month and a part of Mental Health Awareness Week, with support from SU’s Student Success Programs and Services, Barnes Center at The Arch and Orange After Dark.

Richards’ set called out the audience, joking that they held in their laughter at one joke in anticipation of the next. He even singled out one person in the audience’s laugh, which he said sounded like when someone steps on a dog’s tail or an endangered bird’s call.

“I swear I want to shrink you and put you in my pocket and take you to every show,” Richards told the audience member with a “weird ass laugh.”

Ward, who’s a writer for SNL, was next up before the main act. Her set touched on mental health, living with roommates and weed. As a gay woman, she joked that it’s better to have a gay absent father who’s just “living his best life” than a straight absent father. Richards returned to the stage at the end of Ward’s set to hype the audience up for Hernández.

Hernández delivered an electric, passionate set to the crowd, who were hooked on every word. Often moving around and knocking things over, Hernández embodied each joke he delivered, and the audience responded, rocking back and forth with laughter.

Rosina Boehm | Culture Editor

Syracuse University sophomores Nathaly Juarez Meza and Lupe Rosas pose in “Te Amo Marcello” shirts. They were first in line for Marcello Hernández’s comedy show in Goldstein Auditorium.

Most of the items onstage, set up perfectly, fell to the floor during his set, from his hat to the water bottles to the stool. Hernández moved the microphone stand around the stage, weaving it into his physical comedy. And what better way to illustrate the perks of being a short king than to contrast height with the stand?

He demonstrated that short kings will always be able to have a better conversation with their head right next to yours, instead of needing to yell up to a tall boyfriend. Maybe if you’re the same height, it’s true love, or at least it is according to Hernández.

To get to Syracuse, Hernández refused to fly into its “mini airport.” He opted instead for a sprinter van.

“That was lovely, dude, I was on the ground the whole time; it was amazing,” Hernández said. “I don’t like to fly. I’m always like, you know, I’m crazy. I just think that the pilots need to talk to us more.”

Hernández said Syracuse was very different from his hometown, Miami, and other cities. An SU student asked what he thought of the city during a Q&A session.

“Nothing,” Hernández said.

While he joked about Syracuse briefly, much of Hernández’s set focused on his Latine identity.

Hernández joked, similar to his favorite sketch with Pedro Pascal and Bad Bunny, how his mom, a Cuban immigrant, told him he didn’t have ADD after he was diagnosed with it.

“She was like, ‘Tell me if you want ADD, because I can give you ADD,’” Hernández said.

Hernández also talked about his jealousy of family dynamics in “Full House,” childhood experiences like interrupting his mom on the phone and how he felt sick when his white friends threw a TV off a roof in college.

One of Hernández’s biggest qualms of the night, though, came from not getting the same support from his friends as women give each other. After a breakup over the summer, he asked a friend to take some pictures of him at the beach. But his friend looked at him confused.

He envied the admirative social media comments women get that, frankly, edge on being scary and need to be looked into.

One SNL sketch where Hernández plays a homewrecker named Domingo recently went viral, so someone in the crowd yelled to ask if he would sing it. He said he would cue the audience in before the whole crowd sang together.

“You can sing it and show me how nasty you are with it,” he told the crowd before his hyped-up “big closer.”

SU brought Hernández because of his relatability for Latine audiences and the general public.

Student Association President German Nolivos said he wanted this to be the big finale of SU’s Latine Heritage Month. Hernández was the first person that came to mind because of his popularity and the way he represents Latine cultures.

“He knows how to make others outside of our culture feel represented and feel curious about what being Latino is and what we represent as a community,” Nolivos said.

Social media is where Juarez Meza found him too, even before he joined SNL. Since then, she’s watched him blow up on TikTok. Rosas shared this experience, especially as a huge SNL fan.

“I always thought he was really funny, and I feel like this is a perfect opportunity for people to see how funny he actually is,” Rosas said. “And maybe new Marcello fans are gonna come from this.”

Published on October 27, 2024 at 1:58 pm

Contact Rosina: rlboehm@syr.edu