You may think you’re really into the spirit of Christmas, but your devotion to the holiday is probably nothing in comparison to “SNL” host James Franco’s gift wrapper at Bloomingdale’s. And it’s probably nothing in comparison to Franco’s devotion to finishing out this sketch despite cracking up completely about halfway through and never really recovering.
The result is the best sketch of this season of “SNL.” You can watch it in full in the embedded video above.
“You’re so great with the customers,” Kate McKinnon says after he wraps up a woman’s Xbox. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Uh, because I’m a freakin’ nut for Christmas, that’s how!” Franco replied. And that’s when Beck Bennett arrived with a Barbie doll for his niece that needed wrapping, a task that would test Franco’s unwavering commitment to delivering the Christmas spirit to all his customers.
That’s because while wrapping the doll Franco got a papercut on the tip of his right index finger, and proceeded to spurt blood all over the gift. But despite that, Franco carried on.
“I just need a little pressure on it. It’s gonna stop any second,” Franco said after he finished wrapping the doll and resisted McKinnon’s suggestion that he see the store nurse. Franco then stuck his finger in his mouth, which is where it remained until Leslie Jones and Kenan Thompson arrived to ask if he could wrap another present.
Franco then pulled his finger out of his mouth, spraying blood all over Jones, marking the point at which the sketch descended into complete chaos — he tried to use the store’s paper cutter, only to accidentally cut off several fingers on his left hand.
Franco barely kept it together, and Jones was dry heaving over having blood sprayed in her mouth… and there was still, like, 90 more seconds of the sketch to go.
It may be hard to believe that the sketch could still escalate from there, but it did. Oh boy it sure did.