According to a new report, Saturday Night Live allegedly plagiarized sketches from the New York City comedy sketch group “Temple Horses.”
Variety reports that two sketches written by comedians Nick Ruggia and Ryan Hoffman, who make up the group Temple Horses, were allegedly stolen from them by SNL.
“We feel like somebody took our stuff, and this isn’t the kind of thing where you can just get it back or call your insurance company to have it replaced, so at this point we’re just speaking out about it,” Hoffman said.
The two sketches from the longtime NBC comedy show that the group claims were ripped off are titled “Pumpkin Patch” and “Pound Puppy.”
“Pumpkin Patch” does indeed share some of the same humor and premise as an older skit from Temple Horses called “Fucking a Pumpkin.”
Similarly, the SNL skit “Pound Puppy” allegedly takes inspiration from their old skit “Pet Blinders.”
In a letter to NBC reported on by Variety, the comedians’ attorney writes, “This season, NBC Network’s sketch comedy program SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (“SNL”) has plagiarized entire sketches from Temple Horses. Nick and Ryan love comedy and revere SNL as an institution–but unless they’re paid writers on SNL, NBC has no right to broadcast or use their material on SNL by NBC. It saddened Nick and Ryan to learn that SNL has plagiarized Temple Horses at least twice this season.”
NBC reportedly responded by saying that the ideas were created without inspiration from the Temple Horses.
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