Pizza Rolls
S40 E13, S41 E12, S42 E13
Totino’s, the frozen pizza snacks of your teenage dreams , found immortality not in a microwave but in Saturday Night Live’s biting trilogy of commercial parodies.
Crafted by Vanessa Bayer, Chris Kelly, and Sarah Schneider, these sketches turn gendered snack ads into surreal, existential masterpieces, blending biting satire, escalating absurdity, and just the right amount of Kristen Stewart. What begins as a seemingly benign spoof of the Big Game Wife™ trope evolves into a trilogy of longing, conspiracy, and unexpected romance.
The first sketch feels deceptively straightforward. Vanessa Bayer, the unnamed ever-smiling wife, bustles about her kitchen, lovingly delivering plate after plate of Totino’s to her husband and his friends, who grunt monosyllabic gratitude like humanized Labradors. She’s a prop in their football universe, fulfilling her sole purpose: feeding her "hungry guys." But then the ad copy takes a darkly comedic turn. “What’s a woman to do while her hungry guys enjoy the big game?” Totino’s has the answer—an activity pack! Bayer dives into the pack’s diversions with unsettling enthusiasm: playing with a spinning top, completing a word search, slapping one of those gummy, stretchy hands on the fridge. It’s quietly dystopian, made all the more hilarious by J.K. Simmons, who hypes the activity pack with unshakable authority. All the while, Bayer’s unrelenting perkiness masks the creeping dread of a character whose life is defined by delivering pizza rolls.
The second sketch takes a more sinister tone. This time, Bayer is back in her sunny kitchen, once again ferrying Totino’s to the couch-bound men. Everything seems normal—until it isn’t. The “hungry guys” aren’t just football fans anymore; they’re a hive mind. Larry David’s unblinking delivery as one of the “boys” makes the sketch unsettlingly funny. The men chant in unison, transfixed by a television that, Bayer suddenly realizes, isn’t even turned on. Her dawning horror is matched only by the men’s eerie synchronization, a subtle jab at the mindless consumption of both snacks and media. The sketch brilliantly balances absurd humor with a creeping sense of dread, taking the viewer from commercial parody to psychological thriller in under three minutes.
The trilogy crescendos with the pièce de résistance of Totino’s lore. It begins with Bayer fulfilling her usual duties, catering to her husband’s hungry guys as they “watch the game.” Then, Kristen Stewart’s “Sabine” enters the picture. A sister of one of the guys, she locks eyes with Bayer, igniting a romance that feels more fitting for an A24 film than a fake frozen food ad. What follows is a masterful juxtaposition of Totino’s commercial absurdity and a tender, slow-burn romance between Bayer and Natalie. With a soft, dreamlike glow enveloping the kitchen, the women exchange loaded glances, their chemistry palpable as they share pizza rolls in an unspoken intimacy. The football game fades into irrelevance as the kitchen becomes the stage for a love story that feels like it belongs in a Cannes-winning French film.
The genius of these sketches lies in their escalating absurdity, rooted in meticulous writing and Vanessa Bayer’s pitch-perfect performance. As Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider revealed, the Totino’s trilogy was never about taking shots at the brand itself but about pulling apart the clichés of gendered advertising. Each sketch peels back another layer of the “wife” archetype, from bored but smiling servant to existentially adrift human to a woman rediscovering her agency through pizza rolls and forbidden love.
Make it! Pizza rolls from Serious Eats.