Don Roy King | Austin Brings His Roommate Home from College / 2008 [TV (SNL) episode]

any friend of mine is a friend of my dad’s

by Douglas Messerli

 

Seth Meyers, Doug Abeles, James Anderson, and Alex Blaze (head writers), Don Roy King (director) Austin Brings His Roommate Home from College / 2008 [4.45 minutes] [TV (SNL) episode]

 

The only rule that the Vogelcheck family has for the roommate Kevin (Andy Samberg) that their son Austin (Paul Rudd) has just brought home for the weekend is “Be yourself,” something given the Vogelcheck traditions is almost impossible to be given their penchant for their over-the-top expressions of physical love.

 

    Originally, it’s not very surprising that Austin’s mother kisses her son several times, or even when she brings up the fact that Austin might have a girlfriend, his own father plants several kisses on his son’s cheeks, forehead, and lips. One might attribute this simply to the good and friendly relationship between parents and son that Austin mentions to his roommate just as he arrives.

     But his father’s equal expression of affection for his advice for his son to concentrate on his studies at Miami University (a noted university in Oxford, Ohio, incidentally, not in Florida) might naturally confuse anyone, and certainly does appear a bit strange to his onlooking dorm companion.

     The fact that Austin’s brother (Bill Hader) comes to the table with some rather deep mouth to mouth kisses with Austin, and then turns back to his parents to award them similar kisses does rather disturb Kevin, who like most of us has never experienced such a loving family.

      But if this family is truly focused on one another’s faces, there are rather disconnected with basic conversational skills. When Austin’s father finds out that his son’s roommate is from Montclair, he asks “Do you know Mary Steenburgen?” Wondering if she might too be from his hometown, he’s told that she’s simply the father’s (Fred Armisen) favorite actress, a No. 10.

     Linguistic connections are apparently not this family’s forté. Kissing is their major focus and activity. And when his wife (Kristen Wig) to ask if he was talking about her, he puts his lips to her eye, evidently turning her “focus” to the wet saliva of a kiss. Dad’s also appreciative of his hard-working son Dwayne (Hader), who share an entire series of praiseworthy smackers, back and forth, for several moments.

      Asked about his college experiences, Austin mentions that he and his friends all get sleeping bags and stay over night on the floor—the dream of any young gay man in search of a sexual outing. Kevin decides that it’s time to call his folks.

      As he does in many such episodes, the father intercedes, realizing that the natural family affection of Vogelchecks has made the visitor uncomfortable. “That’s just how we are. We’re Vogelchecks. Again, he trots out his immigrant past, the story first Vogelcheck coming to the country with nothing, “totally naked,” looking to make a better life for himself.

      Kevin realizes that he shouldn’t judge people until he knows their whole story, and a moment later, in apology, he’s in a full deep mouth French kiss with his friend’s father, which, after a fairly long amount of chomping on each other’s molars, he declares “Wasn’t so bad.”

 

Los Angeles, June 3, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (June 2024).