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Jim Carrey Parodies McConaughey Lincoln Ads on SNL

And for one brief, shining moment, SNL and Jim Carrey were both funny once again.

This weekend, Saturday Night Live—which hasn’t really been funny whatsoever this season—was hosted by reputable funnyman/rubberface Jim Carrey—who hasn’t really been funny since the year 2000. Carrey was there to promote Dumb and Dumber To, which is almost certainly going to be an enormous disappointment to anyone who actually thinks that it could be good in the first place. Carrey may have also inadvertently helped promote Lincoln and the MKC crossover in the process, a brand that has been a disappointment to fans of the Continental for about as long as it’s been since Jim Carrey last put out a good movie.

Jim Carrey was the latest to jump on the bandwagon of parodying Matthew McConaughey’s bizarre ads for the Lincoln MKC, following both Conan and Ellen. To his credit, his may have been the best of the bunch so far. It’s still not even close to penance for The Number 23.

Carrey actually does a pretty passable McConaughey impression through the three short spots, which are actually quite capable in and of themselves as ads for the 2015 Lincoln MKC. There are plenty of hero shots interspersed between Carrey McConaughamming it up, which is something that’s probably got Lincoln’s brass doing their best Ace Ventura impressions (because, let’s face it, Lincoln’s been stuck in the ’90s for the last 15 years as it is).

And really, this particular parody is fertile real estate for Lincoln if it wants to be a brand that people actually recognize as something other than the thing that their grandfather drove. Carrey’s hosting efforts have been earning plaudits, and the Lincoln parodies earned particular praise. That’s exposure money can’t buy, and it sure as hell beats parading your crossover around and comparing it to fine art.

In the first spot, we finally get Carrey’s answer as to why McConaughey is pill-rolling throughout his Lincoln commercials: he’s actually balling up a freshly-picked booger. Turns out he’s driving around Texas contemplating whether it’s best form to eat it or throw it out the window. (The correct answer is always to throw it out the window.)

It also questions whether McConaughey signing on to be Lincoln’s brand spokesman almost immediately after winning an Oscar is a big step back: “My agent was like, ‘I could understand if you did this right after The Lincoln Lawyer. That would have made sense.’ But you don’t buy a Lincoln because it makes sense. You do it ‘cause you love it…or ‘cause you’re an Uber driver.”

Buying a Lincoln not making sense? Sometimes, in parody, there is truth.

The second spot sees Carrey riff a bit more on the nihilistic musings of Rust Cohle, espousing his belief that mankind is a mistake and that is the duty of every man and women to the last to extinguish the mistake that nature has made.

Cut immediately to two kids sitting in the back seat, one of whom critiques her dad for driving too slow. Carrey’s response to being told he’s driving five miles per hour: “Not bad for a Lincoln.”

For the final spot, we cut to a parody of the Allstate Insurance ads with the endlessly unfunny Keenan Thompson playing the role of Dennis Haysbert. Thompson is somehow less convincing as Haysbert than he was as Ray Lewis during the premiere episode of the season, but we all know well enough that Kel Mitchell was always the load-bearer of that team.

Fortunately, in comes Jim Carrey and the trusty Lincoln MKC to mercifully carry Keenan Thompson off screen. If only this exact thing had happened before production began on Fat Albert, the world might be a better place today.

Here, Matthew McConaughey is portrayed as stoned, naked, and wearing a tie on his head.

If you’re not ancient like yours truly, you may not know that this is a callback to an incident and arrest that occurred literally 15 years to the day prior to the airing of this particular episode. Long and short of it: McConaughey really likes his pot and his bongos, and he hates pants.

There’s something oddly appropriate about using a 15-year-old joke on a show that hasn’t been funny in years and is hosted by a man whose last good movie was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in 2004. Time is a flat circle.