In the illustrious, voluminous history of sketch comedy, there may not be a better single skit than “Substitute Teacher” from Key & Peele. The concept revolves around Keegan-Michael Key’s character, a sub named Mr. Garvey who used to teach in the inner city. He’s filling in at a school that isn’t quite his speed as far as intensity and vernacular are concerned. This leads to a hilarious catastrophe of increasingly baffling pronunciations of students’ names while taking roll call.
A long-suffering and now-elated Detroit Lions fan, Key is passionate about the NFL, and has been involved with some of their marketing campaigns, including the whole shtick about the script for each season being predetermined. But whenever I think of Key, “Substitute Teacher” is what immediately springs to mind.
Why not continue to lean into that, eh? Key hopped on The Rich Eisen Show to give us another helping of poor pronunciations, this time featuring not fictional students, but real-life NFL players.
As somebody who has a soft spot for Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Ladd McConkey — who no NFL Draft junkie on the Internet had ranked as high as 11th on any big board I’ve seen — I was particularly taken with Key’s interpretation of the rookie second-round pick’s name.
I can’t believe we were pronouncing this Chargers WR name wrong this entire time!
“Ladede MecKonkay” pic.twitter.com/geb1K1aRt6
— Jake Hefner (@JakeTHefner) September 13, 2024
So starting out pretty hot. Love to see it. Then Key comes from the top rope for New England Patriots new franchise quarterback hopeful Drake Maye. We’ve got “Da-Rock-Ay Mah-Yay.” I know there’s probably a more proper way to phonetically spell out names the way they’re pronounced. I’m just gonna wing it because it’s more fun like that.
We basically got a Black Eyed Peas will.i.am-inspired take on Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Liam Eichenberg. The Eisen producers did a great job making sure we got a “Blake” name in there by tossing Los Angeles Rams tailback Blake Corum into the mix. Well done there.
A surname that starts with a “Z” is ripe for reinterpretation, so I really appreciated Key’s take on Jets kicker Greg Zuerlein, which goes something like, “G-Reg Zur-Illian.” Like a loose rhyme with reptilian. Cool too that Zur-Illian plays on the same team as A-A-Ron Rod-Gurs.
You get the picture. Maybe someday Key and Jordan Peele will come together and somehow develop a Mr. Garvey spin-off in the style of Ted Lasso. One way or another, it’d be awesome to see more of the guy. Now watch the original sketch or face the consequences of being called to Oh-Shag-Hennessy’s office.
