Quinta Brunson told the crowd during her first-ever SNL hosting stint that she was fulfilling a longtime dream. “I wanted to be on SNL back in the day but the audition process seemed long,” she said. “So instead, I just created my own TV show, made sure it became really popular, won a bunch of Emmys and then got asked to host — so much easier, so much easier.”
And so here she was, taking the long route to being on the longtime sketch show. That show, Abbott Elementary, is a rare beast these days, as she described it.
“It’s a network sitcom like, say, Friends,” she told the crowd. “Except, instead of being about a group of friends, it’s about a group of teachers. Instead of New York, it’s in Philadelphia and instead of not having Black people, it does,” she said, alluding to longtime criticism of the show’s lack of diversity.
Brunson also talked about the one “downside” of having a hit show about teachers: “every time there’s an issue with the public school system, people expect me to solve it. And that’s not fair.”
Brunson ended her monologue on a sincere note. “Please, remember how important teachers are,” she said. “Acknowledge the work they do every day and for the love of God, pay them the money they deserve.”
You can watch Brunson’s SNL monologue in the video above.