Mango (Saturday Night Live)

Mango was a character performed by Chris Kattan on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live.^[1][2] The character was co-created and developed by Kattan and SNL writer Scott Wainio along with initial creative contributions by Roy Jenkins. Mango is a male exotic dancer who performed in a strip club.^[3] He would always wear tight lamé shorts and often a spangled beret. Mango spoke with a Hispanic accent, and though his nationality was never identified, he was said to be born on "Mango Island". He appeared on 16 SNL episodes between 1997 and 2002.

History

The concept was that Mango's sexual appeal was irresistible to anyone of either gender, though his admirer was typically a man, played by the episode's guest host (the celebrity on the show for that week). Neither Mango nor his male admirers were homosexual, the concept being that Mango's love was magical, pure, powerful, and located in his butt. One of the women attracted to Mango was Ellen DeGeneres. His high school sweetheart was played by Gwyneth Paltrow, and his normal suburban wife was portrayed by Molly Shannon. The sketches would usually revolve around Mango's being backstage at one of his "shows" (which appeared burlesque in nature). The host would then become obsessed with Mango, wanting to woo and make love to him, but Mango would resist until the host was driven insane. Part of this resisting usually involved Mango stretching out his arm towards the host in pose of acceptance as the host turned away, only to pull it away a second later when the host turned back around. A common joke involved Mango describing himself in ethereal terms, for example: "Can you know the mighty ocean? Can you lasso a star from the sky? Can you say to a rainbow... 'Hey, stop being a rainbow for a second'? No! Such is Mango!" Mango was also shown in one skit to have a wife and child, and always ended his skits by telling his admirer, "You can't-a have-a de Mango!" and slapping his own buttocks. Usually Mango would appear depressed at the end of episodes and say something similar to: "Oh, to be Mango! Why to be me?!" Though effeminate, Mango was adamant that he was not homosexual, claiming that he stripped to support his children as well as that he was "not the homo-gay." Mango's taunting of the hosts, and his often shattered spirit at the ends of sketches, was part of Mango's mystique regarding his true gender preference^{[clarification needed]}. He did, however, have a crush on Chris Gaines as revealed on an episode hosted by Garth Brooks, only to have his dreams crushed when Gaines revealed himself as Brooks. He said he had a similar admiration for Matt Damon, but it was unclear if it was a crush or just that he was a big fan; but it prompted Ben Affleck to wear a blond wig in an effort to disguise himself as Damon. Mango is also suspected to have dated Saturday Night Live's own Jimmy Fallon. In one episode where he spends Christmas with his family, his entire family is shown to be wearing gold hot pants, although with more common outfits covering their torsos.

During several of his fans' obsessive daydream sequences, Mango would commonly appear in a thought cloud over the person's head, dancing provocatively in front of a mango to "Missing" by Everything But the Girl. This song came to be synonymous with the character.

Though the character was so popular that there was a public demand for a feature film based on his adventures, "The Mango Movie" was never filmed, though a script of the film is rumored to exist.

See also

• Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches

References

1. ^ Stephen Tropiano, The prime time closet: a history of gays and lesbians on TV (Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002), 255.
2. ^ Ryan, Paul (2007). The art of comedy: getting serious about being funny. Back Stage Books. p. XXI. ISBN 0823084671. http://books.google.com/books?id=4QtI9SnVTR0C&pg=PR21&dq=%22saturday+night+live%22+mango. "Some of the greatest characters from Saturday Night Live were based on funny voices or physical characteristsics, such as Dana Carvey’s “Church Lady” character and Chris Kattan’s “Mango” character." 
3. ^ Marc Robinson, Brought to You in Living Color: 75 Years of Great Moments in Television & Radio from NBC (John Wiley and Sons, 2003), 210.

External links

• The SNL Archives: Mango