The Boston Teens

The Boston Teens
Saturday Night Live characters

Denise and Sully
First appearance November 13, 1999
Last appearance December 17, 2011
Created by Rachel Dratch
Tina Fey
Portrayed by Rachel Dratch
Jimmy Fallon
Information
Occupation High school students (later dropouts)
Spouse(s) married (2011 episode)
Children five (2011 episode)
Relatives Danny "Dadu" McDenna (Denise's brother)
Bernadette Sullivan (Sully's sister)
Religion Irish Catholic
Nationality Irish American

The Boston Teens are fictional characters featured on the American television show Saturday Night Live. "The Boston Teens" debuted in 1999 and have appeared in 13 sketches to date. TV Guide named The Boston Teens among Saturday Night Live's 40 greatest characters in a list compiled in honor of the show's 40th anniversary in 2015.[1]

About

Denise "Zazu" McDenna (Rachel Dratch) and Pat Sullivan or "Sully" (Jimmy Fallon)[2] are a pair of Lexington, Massachusetts, teenagers in love.[3] The teens and their friends speak in a highly affected Boston accent.

The sketches are presented in the format of home video footage filmed by their unseen friend Tommy.[4] They have a torrid relationship, often arguing and making up in the same sentence. A prime example of this is Denise's tendency to say, "You're retarded!" or "You're so queer!" to which Sully replies, "You are" and immediately starts making out with her.[5] The sketches usually end with one of the participants making a Freudian slip and Sully hoping that Tommy caught it on camera.

The characters are very devoted fans of the Boston Red Sox. Sully typically wears a Boston Red Sox shirt, and Denise usually wears a blue and gold varsity jacket.[6] and They the name of former star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra as a catchphrase, though with their Boston accents, it is pronounced as "Nomah!"[1] Garciaparra makes a cameo appearance in the October 14, 2000 sketch, in which he dates Sully's older sister Bernadette (played by Kate Hudson), who flunked out of cooking school.

Frankie Hilbert (Horatio Sanz), a long-haired, bespectacled burnout, features in all but the first and latest episodes. In one episode, Justin Timberlake plays Denise's younger brother, Danny, a pyromaniac who provided the family a large sum of money after the Boston Archdiocese paid them off to keep the family from suing a priest who molested him (though, according to Danny, he was "...only minorly diddled").

Donnie Bartalotti, played by Ben Affleck, has appeared three times. In the penultimate Boston Teens sketch, he gets married to Michael Smith or "Smitty", played by Seth Meyers, as a response to Massachusetts' recent legalization of same-sex marriage.

The most recent sketch was the December 17, 2011 episode (hosted by Fallon), in which it was established that Sully and Denise eventually married each other and have five children: Weezer, Chubbsy, Squeeze Box, Haggs and Baby Richard.

Origin

The characters have their roots in a sketch called "Wicked" (an intensifier in the New England dialect, as in the expression "Wicked awesome!") performed at Chicago's Second City by Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey, playing an early version of the Denise character and her mother (or "mutha").[2]

Appearances

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "The 40 Best SNL Characters of All Time". TV Guide. February 13, 2015. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  2. 1 2 Wright, Megh (August 16, 2011). "Saturday Night's Children: Rachel Dratch (1999-2006)". Splitsider. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  3. ↑ Turchi, Megan (August 21, 2014). "Jimmy Fallon Makes Fun of Boston, But We Know It Was Out of Love". Boston.com. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  4. ↑ Scheiber, Hope (January 5, 2015). "The Boston Teens (Rachel Dratch, Jimmy Fallon)". Complex Magazine. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  5. ↑ Carbone, Nick (December 18, 2011). "Sully And Denise, The Boston Teens". Time Magazine. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  6. ↑ Angelo, Megan (February 13, 2015). "19 SNL Secrets and Stories From Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Others". Glamour Magazine. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
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