Viral Video: SNL Parodies Dystopian YA Novels With ‘The Group Hopper’

Michael Lee, October 13, 2014October 13, 2014

The third episode of Saturday Night Live marked the return of SNL alum Bill Hader. While the episode was definitely better than the season’s first two, I’m sure everyone was waiting for Stefan to give out his latest New York hot spot suggestion. But there were some other highlights seen during that episode, one that actually involved SNL freshman Pete Davidson in a skit parodying those dystopian YA novels. Hit the jump to check it out.

The sketch is called Group Hopper, and in it, Davidson plays our lead hero, who mysteriously appears on a very important day where kids are segregated into groups and forced to fight to the death under the watchful eye of a King (or Queen played by none other than Bill Hader).

SNL some how managed to sneak in every YA novel adaptation of the year and sneak it in as a pitch to get you to watch Group Hopper. It would actually be hilarious if the director of The Maze Runner; the producer of Divergent; and a causal fan of The Giver,” would come up with another film “adapted from the comments section of The Hunger Games trailer.”

Every single plot element seen in a dystopian YA novel is in here: made up names, groupings, destined hero to save them all, the awkward romance, you name it, they got it. But they missed a few things, namely, they didn’t set themselves up for the trilogy, and the last film which would obviously be split up into two parts.