I haven’t regularly watched Saturday Night Live since I was a teenager way back in the day, but they’ve had some truly hilarious skits over the past year. Some people argue that SNL is “not funny” any more, but personally I find the same amount of hits and misses as there’s always been. (I’d imagine one’s political persuasion has an impact on whether you enjoy SNL, though again my personal opinion is that I don’t mind being poked fun at as long as you actually make it funny.)

In any case, SNL did a skit a few years ago with a savage sketch taking a shot at all of the “mid-tier” hotels out there. Kind of reminds me of the Progressive commercial about airport behavior. I had first seen it a year or so ago but I watched it the other day and I was reminded of how funny it was.

The Business Garden Inn and Suites & Hotel Room Inn

If you haven’t already seen it, here’s SNL advertisement for the “The Business Garden Inn and Suites & Hotel Room Inn,” featuring Kate McKinnon and guest host Billie Eilish.

I was trying to see how many hotel chains they managed to squeeze into the title. I count:

• Wyndham Garden
• Hilton Garden Inn
• Hampton Inn and Suites
• And then there’s just about everything with “hotel” or “inn” in the name

List of “Every Amenity Required by Law”

I don’t want to spoil the whole skit (why haven’t you watched it yet?!?!!) but here are some of my favorite “amenities” included:

• Phone that blinks (why do hotels still have phones or alarm clocks?)
• Short glass “wearing a little hat”
• Every town has a cave!
• The location that will make your Uber driver say “ya sure?” (at least the Holiday Inn Express isn’t in the Walmart)
• Wet eggs and cereal in gumball machines
• Yogurt in a fridge that gets padlocked at 8:59 a.m. – this was the best one for me

I was disappointed when they listed all of the people who stayed there that they didn’t include something about a travel baseball team of 20 tweens and their parents, which seems like a frequent occurrence whenever I stay at hotels of this type. Watching Billie Eilish try not to break character was an amusing sidestory to the skit.

Other SNL hotel skits

I saw over on One Mile at a Time that he also wrote about this ad and also shared two other SNL hotel-related skits, which I also found hilarious.

First there was this one, where a checking out guest tries to hurry up and check out while front desk worker Louis CK lists off a seemingly neverending litany of charges. (Though 12 cents for a stuffed bobcat does seem like exceptionally good value.)

Then there was this one where an American who’s just been rescued from North Korea simply wants to check into his room instead of hearing about … The STAR GAZER LOUNGE!

I thought all of these skits captured some of the lunacies and idiosyncrasies of hotel travel. And while I LOLd several times while watching these parodies, I still am a fan of these types of hotels and would definitely seek them out instead of staying in “nice” hotels.

Which was your favorite part of the SNL hotel ad skit? Leave it in the comments.

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