SNL Spoofs Barbie Trailer With American Girl Dolls & Their Sad, Sad Backstories

If the theme color for the new Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling is hot pink, the theme color for Saturday Night Live’s American Girl doll movie spoof would be like a muddy brown or a stormy grey. Because these American Girl dolls, as pointed out in the mock trailer, “are going through too much.”

SNL host Ana de Armas joined cast members Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Molly Kearney, and Sarah Sherman to play live-action movie versions of our favorite American Girl dolls, and spoiler alert, things are not going too well for them.

“Not all dolls live in a Dreamhouse. Some are bigger, younger, sadder — some dolls are American Girls,” the voiceover explains. “This summer: a new live-action story about your favorite historically accurate dolls, each with their own harrowing backstory.” And all of those backstories seem to involve “their family members dying from old-timey diseases.”

Like Samantha, a “bi*tchy orphan named from Victorian times,” for example, who “watched my parents die in a boat.” Or Fineman’s doll Kirsten whose “best friend Marta died of cholera.” Or Kearny’s doll Molly whose “daddy is a prisoner of war.” But that wasn’t the worst part for her. “Tragically... I have glasses,” Molly says. And Nwodim’s doll Addy? “I don’t know my own birthday because I’m a runaway slave,” she says. As for de Armas’ doll Josephina? “Mama is dead, we buried her in the church graveyard.”

The response to each of these tragedies? “That’s okay!”

Unlike Greta Gerwig’s version of Barbie, these dolls do not appear to be having the time of their lives with beach parties and fun outfits and such. Although they do have a fashion show featuring the “over-burdened preteens wearing four layers of petticoats and pantaloons.” The fun doesn’t last long, however, as their tea party is interrupted by de Armas’ doll losing the memory of her mama and another doll coughing blood into her napkin. She dies but you know what? “That’s okay!”

Some fans loved the concept of this movie, “10/10 would watch an American Girl doll movie,” one viewer commented, while another said, “SNL did a sketch for all of us girlies who grew up with American Girl Dolls and I truly have zero notes.”

Much like Barbie, the skit ended with the dolls heading off to discover a different world. And they had plans. “I’m going to stop World War II,” said Kearny’s doll, while de Armas’ doll planned to “stop the Spanish-American war.” Gardner’s doll had plans to end cholera, but instead she coughed up blood into a napkin and ended up getting pitched off the back of the wagon, her corpse wrapped in a blanket.

“That’s okay!”