Saturday Night Live is in a bit of a pickle. Entertainment Weekly reports that the show is drawing criticism for one of its sketches from last weekend's episode with host Reese Witherspoon; in it, celebrities are competing for a million dollars on a game show, and one of them has to draw the Prophet Muhammad. But the writers aren't getting flack because the sketch was racy or insensitive—which they have in the past—but because some think that SNL copied it from the Canadian comedy show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
A little history refresher here: the tenants of Islam do not allow any visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad—that's one of the issues at the center of the 'Draw Muhammad' shootings in Garland, Texas earlier this month.
Back to wars of intellectual property between news satire shows: according to EW, two writers from This Hour Has 22 Minutes are accusing SNL of stealing this bit.
It's unclear how serious this allegation is—but the two sketches do have a lot in common. Both involve couples competing for one million dollars, when one partner is asked to draw Muhammad and promptly freezes onscreen. In both sketches, the other partner correctly guesses that their spouse meant to draw the prophet, even though they don't sketch anything. (Only one includes Kenan Thompson as a cantankerous Reginald VelJohnson, the guy who played Carl Winslow on Family Matters.)
Watch the two videos below.
