For three years, Saturday Night Live had a Super Bowl tradition: a new Totino's Pizza Rolls commercial parody starring Vanessa Bayer, written by Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider. Bayer's nameless Totino's spokeswoman suffering through an identity crisis was right in her wheelhouse of playing people desperately trying to hang on to a delusion, smiling through pain.
In 2015, J.K. Simmons played her husband, banishing her to the kitchen and keeping her occupied with a silly children's activity pack, skewering the general misogyny of the commercial world where women exist only to serve their hungry guys.
2016 brought Larry David in as they swerved into an X-Files direction, where she slowly realizes her hungry guys may actually be some kind of hungry alien zombies.
But 2017 was the kicker, and likely one they could never top. Kristen Stewart arrives at the Super Bowl party and focuses exclusively on Bayer. While her hungry guys keep yelling for more pizza rolls, she experiences an earth-shattering realization of her inner womanhood that serves as much a spoof of indie cinema as it does a mockery of snack food ads. It also gave Bayer's character a happy ending, as she finally finds a Totino of her very own.
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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.
TOPICS: Saturday Night Live, NBC, J.K. Simmons, Kristen Stewart, Larry David, Vanessa Bayer