Sketchy Breakdown — Key & Peele — “White Zombies”
Welcome, friends. This is a series of sketch breakdowns. We’ll pick apart a sketch and see what we can learn going act-by-act and joke-by-joke. In this case, one of my all-time favorites, Key & Peele’s “White Zombies.” This one absolutely leveled me the first time I saw it.
It’s interesting to me that the title of the YouTube video is “White Zombies” but the video thumbnail says “Suburban Zombies.” Which is better? “Suburban Zombies” might be better because it doesn’t give the game away, but “White Zombies” might be better because it’s more provocative. What do you think?
Regardless, we open with a shot of a typical American suburban home but there’s a splatter of blood on the siding. Something nasty’s definitely up.
Act I
“Brad” (Kevin Sorbo) leads Keegan and Jordan around the corner with a prototypical gun-slide-racking sound. Uh oh. Danger!
Act I is pretty long here. The turn to Act II doesn’t come until our main characters run into the street and notice that the zombies aren’t interested in them. The game is revealed at last: the zombies are racist.
The reason for this abnormal Act I length has got to be to showcase a Kevin Sorbo cameo. Key & Peele must have decided that it was worth it. Also, this episode aired around Halloween and the zombie genre was pretty popular at the time, so they must have thought people would hang with them a few seconds longer. Normally, you try to make Act I as short as possible — Get to the game! Get me to Act II! — but in this case, we hang out in Act I for almost half the sketch.
Inciting Incident
The main characters realize the zombies are acting racist.
Act II
Act II is called the “promise of the premise” for a reason. I think of it as writer party time. Whatever your original idea was for humor, Act II is where you get to express it unrestrained. That is, until you have to deal with writing a button for your sketch. But we’ll get to that.
If you’re working on this sketch, you might consider making a list of all the situations involving a racist zombie interacting with two POC. Then, pick your best 3 and order them in terms of escalation from least absurd/funny to most absurd/funny.
Here our jokes are:
- Jordan reaches for a zombie and she pulls away (revealing the game)
- Jordan waves in a traditional Jewish zombie’s face and the man does nothing (so it wasn’t just that one zombie who was racist)
- The family man zombie in the car locks the door (When I first saw this sketch I voided my bowels laughing at this point)
- Jordan gestures to the open window and the zombie pulls away. Jordan gasps because this is the third time a zombie has recoiled.
- A small zombie wants to eat Key & Peele but her parents pull her away. (Zombie racism is a learned trait, not an inherited one)
Turn to Act III
A man greets K & P, invites them to a party. “Isn’t this great? These racist zombies are leaving us alone. Come on, we’re having a party!”
ACT III
K & P realize racist zombies aren’t so bad. They wave to some friends. We end with a shot of a zombie in a suit trying to claw his way out of the party.
Ending sketches is hard. It’s easy coming up with the overall idea — What if zombies were racist? — and it’s pretty easy to come up with an Act I from there — We should make it look like The Walking Dead or other zombie show! — but to come up with a button that takes all those choices and ties it up is hard. I think ending with a barbecue was a great choice. They could also have had black zombies eating them at the end, but that would have been a darker, more cynical choice.
I think the party/barbecue was a good call. Better to end on a lighter note.
Conclusion
Other than the longish Act I for Sorbo, this is classic sketch design with a solid button. One of my favorites and a great example of escalation and stakes.
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Thanks for reading!
