Tag: Keegan-Michael Key

Keegan-Michael Key’s best impersonations of Penn State’s James Franklin over the years

Keegan-Michael Key’s James Franklin bit never misses

Penn State has seen plenty of football success since Keegan-Michael Key was a theater student on campus in the mid 1990s, but there’s perhaps no win more important to him than the team’s hiring of James Franklin in 2014.

It doesn’t take much more than a glance to understand why.

The comedian noted for his impressions and sketch comedy skits bears a striking resemblance to his alma mater’s head coach. And that’s how you end up with the perfect crossover of college football and improv.

With ESPN’s College GameDay back in Happy Valley for No. 4 Ohio State vs. No. 3 Penn State, Key was invited to join the show as the guest picker and, of course, he showed up dressed like Franklin again.

So it’s only right to look back at some of the most notable times the two Nittany Lions pulled off the gimmick.

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This comedy star will be the College Gameday picker for Ohio State vs. Penn State

ESPN’s College Gameday has dropped their picker for the high profile Ohio State vs. Penn State battle this weekend.

Ohio State vs. Penn State is going to be the biggest battle on this weekend’s college football slate. The No. 4 Buckeyes are going to Pennsylvania to take on the Nittany Lions, who are still among the handful of undefeated teams left in the country.

While they have had a few scares, even early-season scares against inferior opponents, they haven’t been bested yet. Given the high-profile nature of this game, ESPN’s premier show, College Gameday, will be there.

Ohio State lost earlier this season when College Gameday made the trip to Eugene for its battle with the Oregon Ducks. While that picker was a country music star, this one is a comedian, and College Gameday has released who it is.

From 9 a.m. ET to noon outside of the Bryce Jordan Center, numerous high-profile ESPN personalities will get together to review what has happened and what is about to happen in college football.

For Ohio State, with the Michigan Wolverines and undefeated Indiana Hoosiers still on deck, this might not be the last time it plays following the show’s energizing of the campus in the hours prior.

Keegan-Michael Key’s outstanding 2024 NFL Honors hosting job should land him a future Oscars gig

The 2024 NFL Honors proved one thing: Keegan-Michael Key should host the Oscars one day.

It’s not often you can point to the host of the 2024 NFL Honors ceremony and say, “Now, that person should host the Academy Awards.”

However, that’s how good Keegan-Michael Key was at hosting this year’s NFL awards ceremony.

From his absolutely biting-yet-genial monologue to actually clever bits with the audience, Key managed Thursday night’s awards show with an effortless charm.

He kept the show rolling, got the audience genuinely engaged in the ceremony and knew exactly how to nail those little transitional moments in the awards that people take for granted when watching broadcasts like this.

Hosting an awards show can be one of the toughest jobs in show business, but Key earned an A+ for hosting a football awards show. Imagine what he could do with the Oscars.

There comes a time, after you’ve watched so many awards shows over the years, where you really value the good hosts.

Key’s genuine excitement for the moment certainly helped, as he used his Detroit Lions fandom and general understanding of the NFL to deliver a monologue that got in the right digs at the right people.

Using Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s status as a couple as a conduit to poke fun at Bill Belichick is the kind of unexpectedly hysterical monologue joke that shows like the Oscars are desperate to find.

Comedian Trevor Noah has long earned raves for his Grammys emcee work for this same reason: the vibes are affable, the jokes are smart, the genuine passion for the occasion shows through the performance.

In contrast, comedian Jo Koy’s Golden Globes hosting duties earned wide jeers because his monologue was awful, and he didn’t know how to navigate the room when those jokes weren’t working.

Hosting the Oscars is incredibly tricky, as people have soared and bombed in equal measure. If the Academy wants to see someone absolutely nail a typically static awards show, look at how well Key did on Thursday night.

While comedian John Mulaney might be atop many wish lists in the industry, Key really should be in major consideration in the future.

He knows the movie world, and he’d know how to find the right jokes for the room that are actually funny and find a nice balance between satire and goodwill.

Let’s give Jimmy Kimmel a break and get one of the great sketch comics of the 2010s and one of the industry’s most likable people in as 2025’s Oscar host. Key absolutely deserves it after such a brilliant turn at the NFL Honors.

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Tommy DeVito and Keegan-Michael Key brilliantly recreated a famous Joe Pesci scene from Goodfellas at 2024’s NFL Honors

Funny? Funny how?

Keegan-Michael Key brought out a gag at the 2024 NFL Honors that nobody could’ve seen coming: one that involved New York Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito and the classic movie Goodfellas.

Talking with DeVito in the crowd, Key’s conversation with the quarterback quickly turned into Joe Pesci’s famous “Funny? Funny How?” scene with Ray Liotta from Goodfellas.

Alright, this is absolute gold. DeVito’s winning streak with the Giants was one of the most enjoyable moments of the NFL season, and his proud Italian heritage made this Goodfellas gag all the more hysterical.

Seriously, this joke is funnier than most of what you get at shows like the Oscars and Golden Globes.

This is the kind of gag that makes shows like the NFL Honors worth it, as DeVito was a great sport to help bring some movie magic to the biggest night in NFL awards.

Key’s night hosting went really well, and this might’ve been the most creative bit of the night.

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Robert Kraft playfully winced at Keegan-Michael Key’s Bill Belichick joke during 2024 NFL Honors

Robert Kraft had the funniest response to this Bill Belichick joke.

During Thursday night’s NFL Honors ceremony, emcee Keegan-Michael Key absolutely roasted former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick while Patriots owner Robert Kraft was in the room.

Key joked that it’s unbelievable that music icon Taylor Swift had been to more NFL playoff games this season than Belichick had, and the camera crew immediately cut to Kraft.

The Patriots owner laughed and winced at the joke, which underscored just how bad Belichick’s final year with the franchise was before the two sides parted ways last month after 24 seasons.

However, all you can do is laugh at a joke this funny.

Kraft and Belichick won’t be working together anymore, and this joke will go down as one of the funniest moments in the post-Belichick Patriots era.

The longtime Patriots owner’s reaction was worth the price of admission alone, as you can see the full range of emotions on Kraft’s face to the very funny quip about his former coach.

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Keegan-Michael Key turned his Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce jokes into brutal roasts of Bill Belichick, the Panthers

Oh my, these are some funny zingers.

During his 2024 NFL Honors monologue, comic actor Keegan Michael Key set up some absolutely brutal roasts during the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce portion of his monologue.

Key found a way to make some absolutely hysterical jokes about the biggest power couple in the NFL without even vaguely saying anything about Swift and Kelce.

Instead, he used the couple as a set-up to poke fun at the lowly Carolina Panthers and their awful 2023 season and former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s miserable final year in Foxborough.

When we say these are funny, we mean it. These ziners are top-tier NFL Honors awards monologue material.

You really don’t normally get this sharp of jokes during an awards ceremony, much less one that recognizes NFL awards.

Kudos to Key for these hysterical one-liners that managed to feature the biggest couple in the NFL without being about the biggest couple in the NFL.

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Keegan-Michael Key opens NFL Honors with a roast of former Jags coach Urban Meyer

“That room was emptier than Urban Meyer’s playbook,” Key said of last season’s show, which didn’t have an audience due to COVID-19.

Thursday night’s NFL Honors ended up being a big occasion for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Though the 3-14 squad didn’t have any players selected for postseason awards, it finally managed to get a former player into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in former star offensive tackle Tony Boselli.

The night may have ended on a high note, but it began with a roast of former Jaguars’ coach Urban Meyer at the hands of comedian Keegan-Michael Key, who has hosted the show the last two years.

“I am so excited to be hosting this show again, and in front of people, by the way,” Key said. “This is so much better than what they had to do last year… There were no football players and no audience, I’m telling you, that room was emptier than Urban Meyer’s playbook.”

Ouch.

Meyer has certainly been a common target for jokes since his tenure in Jacksonville ended unceremoniously just 13 games into his first season, and the postseason awards show was no different.

The Jags will hope for a return to normalcy under new coach Doug Pederson, who hopefully won’t have any gags made at his expense during next year’s ceremony.