I confess to laughing out loud midway into this "Saturday Night Live" commercial spoof for the Starbucks Verismo system this past weekend. (If you live in New York -- or any other city where getting coffee at a typically overcrowded, messy Starbucks frequently involves painfully slow, incompetent service -- you'll get it.) That said, I cringed a bit at the voice characterization of the home-brewing machine. But then when the Verquonica system was introduced a minute and 15 seconds in, I ... really took pause. Scroll down below the video for more.
As one commenter wrote on Gothamist in response to a post titled "Is This SNL Skit About Starbucks Racist? (Yep)," "Having both character voices in a 'black' accent seems a bit of overkill. One of them couldn't be some affected hipster chick actress douchie? It could have worked." Or as Twitter user @pushinghoops put it, "SNLs racist Starbucks Verismo skit in line w their tradition of adding classism to racism in order to get away w laughing at latinos/blacks."
What do you think? Feel free to comment below.
Simon Dumenco is the "Media Guy" columnist for Advertising Age. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.