I read a great oral history about how this sketch came about, and some of the bits they had to cut slayed me. "We will still use millimeters, but only to measure certain types of guns. Other guns will use 'caliber', and no one will know the difference between them!"
There is a story about how the sketch didn't go great in dress rehearsal, but the theory is it worked so well live because Bargatze is so good at waiting for the audience to continue.
This is great because I work in a lumber yard in the US, and we only use inches and feet. Europeans come in all the time with their metric measurements, and we stare at the diagram in confusion, and then use a chart to convert it. They aren't exact conversions, but it doesn't matter with wood because it changes size depending on moisture levels in the air.
Nope. And a 1 x 6 is 3/4" x 5 1/2". And 4/4 hardwood is 13/16" thick, not 1". It's all done to confuse the Brits, Russians and Chinese. If they ever get hands on our war plans, they will never understand them mwahahahaha.@@markae0
I wasn't familiar with Nate till he hosted SNL that night & became an instant fan. Thanks for this reaction! Happy Thanksgiving to all from this American of mostly English descent. My father's family came over way back in the 1680's. I'm also Irish, Scandinavian & Cherokee...proud of all of it but it's that English DNA I "feel" he most! As always, much love from Kentucky U.S. 💙🦃🥧🍗🌾🇬🇧🇺🇸💙
As a 65 year old American, we were taught metric measures in elementary school to prepare us for the inevitable conversion. The limited changes that have occurred thus far have been mostly in things that involve international commerce and sports. If it only involves us, it doesn't change. I think it's because we Americans like to think of ourselves as being a friend to other countries while maintaining a cultural separation. That's my personal perception, not statistical fact.
'How big is a cup?' Depends whose bra you are using. 😊 Measurements have always been a mystery to me. Numbers aren't my friends, I prefer hanging out with words 😂😂😂
That was awesome!😆😅 When I was a kid we learned metric because we were told we were making the big switch to all metric. Four decades later...I'm still waiting. 🤣 Nate is a great comedian and well worth checking out.😂 Nice pick Cheryl!
You must have been in school at the same time as me. Learned it all and then they said "nevermind". I think the bicentennial set a course that was abandoned pretty quickly.
I remember that back in the late 70’s iirc. I was in jr high and I think it was a Carter thing. Didn’t think much of it until I moved to Denmark in the mid 90’s and thought, what the hell was wrong with us not adopting it lol. Made life and work so much easier. Then I moved back to the US in 18’ and it was same crap different day 😅. I HATE inches and feet in particular.
A fortnight.....wtf is that...oh its two weeks of time...lol. BTW this is probably the best skit SNL has produced in decades and Nate Bargatze (Washington) is a fantastic comedian.
This sketch is still one of my favorites from SNL. I can’t imagine anyone other that Nate Bergatze playing the role of Washington. His timing and delivery is impeccable.
Thank you for the videos and comments, the good music and the sense of humour. If you ever come to Porto (Portugal..., no, not In Spain! 😄) I will be glad to pay you, not one coffee each, but a meal 🤔. All the best.
US here, and my glass measuring cup has one side in fractions of a cup up to 1 cup, and the other side up to 250 ml. My larger measuring cup from Ikea measures up to 2 cups in Imperial and 500 ml in Metric, and it also has the British Pint on it, which is different from an American Pint (2 cups). It's all clear as mud!
For how big is the cup, you can buy measuring cups that are set out to all the increments you need, as well as measuring spoons. And then there's the liquid measuring cup for measuring liquids
It's beautiful how Washington just skips the free african people bit multiple times here... No comments. Not endorsing anyone slaving anyone else, but it is funny as heck. Keenan is so perfect here too. No I did not ask about that straight to his face. It is so wonderfully brilliant.
I was in 6th grade.. Teacher walked in and said, we're going metric.. there was fights in supermarkets was fights at gas stations and some of our aircraft ran out of fuel midair... We then went back to gallons and feet 😅 7:23
Lol, as a senior American, I've always thought that our Imperial System is crap. I LOVE this SNL skit and I'm happy that we can laugh at ourselves like this. 🥰
That was really good! I have no idea why but I thought about the length of a cricket pitch. 1 Chain or 22 yards....that was obscure and pretty random hey? LOL
I wish there were more SNL reactions like this. There aren't many in general and 95% are Black Jeopardy or Weekend Update Joke Swap. Another recent classic written by Mikey Day is Traffic Altercation, check it out !!!
Love you guys! 💕 Your so fun to watch these vids with 😂 Happy Thanksgiving & someone plz send the guys some measuring cups & spoons so they can follow a recipe 😊
Hilarious, thanks. I haven't watched TV for years. I wonder if they ever used the joke I would when little, that I'm sure many have thought up - how when we declared independence, we all stopped using British accents and started using our own.
The imperial system is based on earths time/space continuum and therefore much more accurate. The metric system is based on matching increments of 10 so is therefore considered much easier to use rather than increments of 12 as used in the imperial system. Look it up
Hi BPs the Washington video raises so many questions of our Imperial Vs Decimal, 30miles up the Road in Sunderland was a. Fruitier who died just because the weights and measure put. so much pressure on him to sell his products in decimal only, but he had both on his store and as he said at the time, the imperial was for the older people to understand, decimal was foreign to them. If there was any other issue I certainly did not hear on our regional news. Americans spell colour different😅
I grew up when the US was trying really hard to get people to buy into the metric system - honestly, it does make a LOT more sense than our system - and to this day still remember 39.36 inches to a meter for some reason. And I've extrapolated that relatively useless information and applied it to the real world: When a colleague visiting from Europe asked me to explain American football - or in the interest of consistency w/the video, a sport where one passes the ball w/one's hand most of the time, w/a little bit of kicking added in - I told him 10 yards is about 9 meters. Bingo, learning the metric system had found its true purpose in the US. 🤣
The countries of the world will be free to speak their native language, and use the metric system, except in the airline industry, where you must speak English and use feet and gallons.
Not to mention different brands of clothing and shoes use different size measurements. Not to mention men's shoes are on a different scale than women's shoes.
Liquid measurements make sense if you include measurements that have dropped out of use. It was 2 Teaspoon in a tablespoon, 2 tablespoons in an ounce, 2 ounces in a jack, 2 jacks in a jill/gill, 2 gills in a cup, 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, 2 quarts in a pottle, a 2 pottles in a gallon.
You guys might like this... I moved to remote hillbilly country in Arkansas and all the land listings in the steep hill country said something like.. 10 acres M/L... I was wondering what could that M/L possible mean... Finally i asked someone in the county courthouse and they told me it meant " More or less"... To further the confusion I asked how can you not know how much land it actually is and they said "well.. from the air looking down its probably 10 acres but because its hills and the land is going up and down so much its hard to tell how much actual surface area is really there... 10 acres could really be 13 acres of land surface if you smushed it all flat... Who knows...
I've seen a bit where a Canadian couple asks questions like, "How cold is it outside?" "Oh, it's 17 degrees. What temperature do I set the oven at to bake this cake? 350." "How far is it to the center of town? 8 kilomters. How tall are you? 6 foot 2." There's apparently a whole list of certain things measured metric, and others measured imperial, and everyone knows which is which.
1,760 yards to the mile - 440 a quarter mile - 880 half mile all used to be face distances in the sixties . Can't believe they don't use stones for a person's weight .
In the 1970's, we had to learn about liters and kilograms because the country was planning to adopt the European measurements. I'm not sure what happened (probably Reagan), but all that effort went down the drain, and we only halfway adopted the metric system. I'm guessing that sodas, wines, and other alcohols are now measured in liters so that they can be easily exported.
Britain used the Imperial system until it converted to metric in 1965 which is around the same time they stopped using Fahrenheit as well. This sketch implies the rest of the world was already using the metric system which is obviously untrue. France was the first in the 1790s followed by Portugal in the 1810s and then Spain around 1850.
I blame the British. We got our system of weights and measures from English Colonial Rule. Sometime later they abandoned it for metrics and now claim "the American System" is weird.
With the British way it always made me think if you use pound for money and pound for weight doesn't that get confusing itself? And if something weighs a stone..then what does the s tone weigh? Both systems are maddening. I used to hate it when I got my first car in 1986..it was a 1974 Toyota and every time I worked on it my American tools wouldn't fit right so then I was off looking for metric ones..then Id get those mixed in with my imperial ones and grab the wrong one every time I reached for one.
I read a great oral history about how this sketch came about, and some of the bits they had to cut slayed me. "We will still use millimeters, but only to measure certain types of guns. Other guns will use 'caliber', and no one will know the difference between them!"
😂😂😂
Weight shall be measured by stones and animals shall be measured by hands. Freedom!
that's english af, tho...
They don't line up and the never will. That will be funny forever. This skit is already legendary in only a years time.
They did another one!
Fun fact: with a long enough ruler or tape measure they do line up. 100 inches is exactly 254 centimeters.
Nate Bargatze's delivery is so excellent.
There is a story about how the sketch didn't go great in dress rehearsal, but the theory is it worked so well live because Bargatze is so good at waiting for the audience to continue.
Watching this during Cheltenham is making me enjoy every last furlong.
Nate did his Washington’s dream again recently with more lunacy.
This is great because I work in a lumber yard in the US, and we only use inches and feet. Europeans come in all the time with their metric measurements, and we stare at the diagram in confusion, and then use a chart to convert it. They aren't exact conversions, but it doesn't matter with wood because it changes size depending on moisture levels in the air.
yeah and a 2 X 4 is not really 2 inches by 4 inches
Nope. And a 1 x 6 is 3/4" x 5 1/2". And 4/4 hardwood is 13/16" thick, not 1". It's all done to confuse the Brits, Russians and Chinese. If they ever get hands on our war plans, they will never understand them mwahahahaha.@@markae0
I wasn't familiar with Nate till he hosted SNL that night & became an instant fan. Thanks for this reaction!
Happy Thanksgiving to all from this American of mostly English descent. My father's family came over way back in the 1680's.
I'm also Irish, Scandinavian & Cherokee...proud of all of it but it's that English DNA I "feel" he most!
As always, much love from Kentucky U.S.
💙🦃🥧🍗🌾🇬🇧🇺🇸💙
Same here!
His specials are the best!
As a 65 year old American, we were taught metric measures in elementary school to prepare us for the inevitable conversion. The limited changes that have occurred thus far have been mostly in things that involve international commerce and sports. If it only involves us, it doesn't change. I think it's because we Americans like to think of ourselves as being a friend to other countries while maintaining a cultural separation. That's my personal perception, not statistical fact.
All that effort to prepare America for adopting the metric system was undone by Ronald Regan.
Oh you guys have got to do Nate Bargatzes stand up. Hes one of my favorites!
Thanks for all the content!
Olivia?
@@RodolfLeclerc😂
'How big is a cup?' Depends whose bra you are using.
😊
Measurements have always been a mystery to me. Numbers aren't my friends, I prefer hanging out with words 😂😂😂
😂
Nat hosted again this weekend. They performed a Part 2 to this skit on 5 October. Still funny!
I think you'll find it was Oct 5th 😉
It’s easy to make fun of others, but the best comedy is when you make fun of yourself.
It's the kind of skit the Pythons would have written. A rare moment where SNL got it right.
That was awesome!😆😅
When I was a kid we learned metric because we were told we were making the big switch to all metric.
Four decades later...I'm still waiting. 🤣
Nate is a great comedian and well worth checking out.😂
Nice pick Cheryl!
You must have been in school at the same time as me. Learned it all and then they said "nevermind". I think the bicentennial set a course that was abandoned pretty quickly.
There was a great SNL skit at the time with Dan Akyroyd introducing the "simple" metric alphabet, but I can't find it on UA-cam.
I remember that back in the late 70’s iirc. I was in jr high and I think it was a Carter thing. Didn’t think much of it until I moved to Denmark in the mid 90’s and thought, what the hell was wrong with us not adopting it lol. Made life and work so much easier. Then I moved back to the US in 18’ and it was same crap different day 😅. I HATE inches and feet in particular.
SAME 🤣
A fortnight.....wtf is that...oh its two weeks of time...lol. BTW this is probably the best skit SNL has produced in decades and Nate Bargatze (Washington) is a fantastic comedian.
Fourteen nights is a fortnight.
@@Greg-om2hb aka two weeks lol
There was a rocket built that failed because the engineers didn't convert a part from English to metric!
There's a second one out now.... It's just as good as this one..
Please react to part 2…. Just as funny!😂
This sketch is still one of my favorites from SNL. I can’t imagine anyone other that Nate Bergatze playing the role of Washington. His timing and delivery is impeccable.
Thank you for the videos and comments, the good music and the sense of humour. If you ever come to Porto (Portugal..., no, not In Spain! 😄) I will be glad to pay you, not one coffee each, but a meal 🤔. All the best.
Haha that was very good, thank goodness we have google these days.
US here, and my glass measuring cup has one side in fractions of a cup up to 1 cup, and the other side up to 250 ml. My larger measuring cup from Ikea measures up to 2 cups in Imperial and 500 ml in Metric, and it also has the British Pint on it, which is different from an American Pint (2 cups). It's all clear as mud!
There is a second part to this sketch now
This is one of the best sketches snl has done in a long time 😂 what about the slaves 😂
How Nate managed to survive that swift 'I did not' from Keenan without breaking character is beyond me. 😂
For how big is the cup, you can buy measuring cups that are set out to all the increments you need, as well as measuring spoons. And then there's the liquid measuring cup for measuring liquids
It's beautiful how Washington just skips the free african people bit multiple times here... No comments. Not endorsing anyone slaving anyone else, but it is funny as heck. Keenan is so perfect here too. No I did not ask about that straight to his face. It is so wonderfully brilliant.
Washington did set his slaves free in his will, so baby steps?
Hysterical 😂
I was in 6th grade.. Teacher walked in and said, we're going metric.. there was fights in supermarkets was fights at gas stations and some of our aircraft ran out of fuel midair... We then went back to gallons and feet 😅 7:23
Be sure and watch the new one!! Part 2
Lol, as a senior American, I've always thought that our Imperial System is crap. I LOVE this SNL skit and I'm happy that we can laugh at ourselves like this. 🥰
Glad I saw this , this is one of the greatest SNL Skits, and miss being abroad to watch it with Europeans.
That was really good! I have no idea why but I thought about the length of a cricket pitch. 1 Chain or 22 yards....that was obscure and pretty random hey? LOL
are you doing the second part?
Yes…. It’s on our list todo shortly!
I love this sketch it reminds me of my younger years in school trying to figure WTF
LOL!!! That's America! We always have to be different!
THIS was SUCH A GREAT BIT!!! "Nobody knows"....HILARIOUS!!! THANKS, GUYS!!! MADE ME LAUGH, TODAY!! Needed that on a MONDAY!! :) :D
There's a Dream #2 you need to see!😂
Yes please!
I wish there were more SNL reactions like this. There aren't many in general and 95% are Black Jeopardy or Weekend Update Joke Swap. Another recent classic written by Mikey Day is Traffic Altercation, check it out !!!
Don't forget teaspoons (tsp) and tablespoons (tbs).
I hope yall have reviewed the most recent call back on this! I’m going to check…
Gotta do a react to the new one. It's even funnier
Love you guys! 💕 Your so fun to watch these vids with 😂 Happy Thanksgiving & someone plz send the guys some measuring cups & spoons so they can follow a recipe 😊
Thank you!! Love the comment and bring on the cups 😂😂
😁
There is a word for 1000 pounds, a “half-ton” but it’s only used for pickup trucks.
Measurements are so crazy! Thank goodness for phones...smartphones,dumb owners lol.
I appreciate that you laugh at our differences, but, don't belittle us.
Hilarious, thanks. I haven't watched TV for years. I wonder if they ever used the joke I would when little, that I'm sure many have thought up - how when we declared independence, we all stopped using British accents and started using our own.
The imperial system is based on earths time/space continuum and therefore much more accurate. The metric system is based on matching increments of 10 so is therefore considered much easier to use rather than increments of 12 as used in the imperial system. Look it up
Hi BPs the Washington video raises so many questions of our Imperial Vs Decimal, 30miles up the Road in Sunderland was a. Fruitier who died just because the weights and measure put. so much pressure on him to sell his products in decimal only, but he had both on his store and as he said at the time, the imperial was for the older people to understand, decimal was foreign to them. If there was any other issue I certainly did not hear on our regional news. Americans spell colour different😅
first time I've seen this one very funny⚛😀
Part 2 is funny as well
Love your reactions! 1760 ysrds in a mile, by the way.
Thanks
England: "Where did you learn to do this stuff" America: "We learned it from you, Dad! We learned from you!"
WE tried metrification in America in the 70s. Didn't work out so well. They tried todo it for a few years than they gave up.
I grew up when the US was trying really hard to get people to buy into the metric system - honestly, it does make a LOT more sense than our system - and to this day still remember 39.36 inches to a meter for some reason.
And I've extrapolated that relatively useless information and applied it to the real world: When a colleague visiting from Europe asked me to explain American football - or in the interest of consistency w/the video, a sport where one passes the ball w/one's hand most of the time, w/a little bit of kicking added in - I told him 10 yards is about 9 meters. Bingo, learning the metric system had found its true purpose in the US. 🤣
The countries of the world will be free to speak their native language, and use the metric system, except in the airline industry, where you must speak English and use feet and gallons.
Not to mention different brands of clothing and shoes use different size measurements. Not to mention men's shoes are on a different scale than women's shoes.
Liquid measurements make sense if you include measurements that have dropped out of use. It was 2 Teaspoon in a tablespoon, 2 tablespoons in an ounce, 2 ounces in a jack, 2 jacks in a jill/gill, 2 gills in a cup, 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, 2 quarts in a pottle, a 2 pottles in a gallon.
Furlongs, hectares, and acres come from UK’s agricultural age. I think a hectare is the amount of land one man and one ox can plow in one day.
Nope. An acre was defined as an area one man could plough with a team of oxen. A hectare is a metric unit (100m × 100m).
You guys might like this... I moved to remote hillbilly country in Arkansas and all the land listings in the steep hill country said something like.. 10 acres M/L... I was wondering what could that M/L possible mean... Finally i asked someone in the county courthouse and they told me it meant " More or less"... To further the confusion I asked how can you not know how much land it actually is and they said "well.. from the air looking down its probably 10 acres but because its hills and the land is going up and down so much its hard to tell how much actual surface area is really there... 10 acres could really be 13 acres of land surface if you smushed it all flat... Who knows...
@superfbomb9054
Thanks for sharing the funny comment, I have not as yet some across the the Imperial measurement of M/L 😂
Nice! And I'm not surprised in the least. 😄
I've seen a bit where a Canadian couple asks questions like, "How cold is it outside?"
"Oh, it's 17 degrees. What temperature do I set the oven at to bake this cake? 350."
"How far is it to the center of town? 8 kilomters. How tall are you? 6 foot 2."
There's apparently a whole list of certain things measured metric, and others measured imperial, and everyone knows which is which.
I just wish I had a British accent ❤. I envy the British 😭
The best thing about a 2x4 is that it is actually 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches.
Fun. I only know what a furlong is because of horse racing.
1,760 yards to the mile - 440 a quarter mile - 880 half mile all used to be face distances in the sixties . Can't believe they don't use stones for a person's weight .
So funny!
A hectare is defined by the metric system, 1 hectare is 10km²
In the 1970's, we had to learn about liters and kilograms because the country was planning to adopt the European measurements. I'm not sure what happened (probably Reagan), but all that effort went down the drain, and we only halfway adopted the metric system. I'm guessing that sodas, wines, and other alcohols are now measured in liters so that they can be easily exported.
thank go d we didnt also take on the whole " I weight 6 stone" thing too
How big is the cup? LOL
Britain used the Imperial system until it converted to metric in 1965 which is around the same time they stopped using Fahrenheit as well. This sketch implies the rest of the world was already using the metric system which is obviously untrue. France was the first in the 1790s followed by Portugal in the 1810s and then Spain around 1850.
You say 4x2? We say 2x4, but its not even actually 2x4. 😂
LEAVES SPEECHLESS
How many yards in a mile?
Nobody knows.
Yes same Keenan from Keenan and Kel
UA-cam Piper Dunster, I also think its pretty funny
It's easy. A cup is 8 ounces.
LoL
You forgot fathoms! 🤣
You didn't hear about the food!
A cup is 8 ounces. Hope that helps.
Please see my playlists of all the best SNL sketches and the best SNL sketches for every holiday.
How about the old system of pounds, shillings, pence, etc.?
I remember learning the metric system in school in the 80s because “it was coming”….nope
The UK is so much funnier than we Americans; it is nice to get a little love for our American humor (humour?) when we get it right.
How many stones do you weigh?
@w.e.m9800
I have yet to find a good reason to weigh a stone 😆
I blame the British. We got our system of weights and measures from English Colonial Rule. Sometime later they abandoned it for metrics and now claim "the American System" is weird.
If only a 2x 4 was 2 by 4
The colonies are why modern British people talk the way they do now.
You forgot miles.
With the British way it always made me think if you use pound for money and pound for weight doesn't that get confusing itself? And if something weighs a stone..then what does the s tone weigh? Both systems are maddening. I used to hate it when I got my first car in 1986..it was a 1974 Toyota and every time I worked on it my American tools wouldn't fit right so then I was off looking for metric ones..then Id get those mixed in with my imperial ones and grab the wrong one every time I reached for one.
A stone is 14 pounds. But the historical origin is that each village had an actual stone they would measure against. Just a local heavy rock.
The total benign neglect regarding the plight of black people was extremely eye opening
weight in stones. WTF is a stone?
You find it at a beach 🏖️ 🤣🤣
@BritPopsReact 😆
Stones or pebbles on the beaches here depending on which state. 😁😃
The origin of an acre... the real one... is great...
Sorry... I'm a nerd for this sht, so great choice
5:44 Too much to learn is right, we as Americans choose not to learn most of it.
Brexit keeps English culture in England....for a while longer than it would be otherwise.
Captions ruin the experience. It gives away the punchline before it is said.
Funny and sad
I'm still reeling from Trump = fart in the mother land.