SNL's 'Office/Hobbit' Parody is Perfect
'The Office: MIddle Earth' is one of the highlights of the current season.
Martin Freeman is best known today as Bilbo Baggins, the titular Hobbit of Peter Jackson's film adaptations, but his breakout role was as Tim Canterbury—the original Jim Halpert—in the UK series of The Office.
Freeman spoofed both roles this past weekend in one of Saturday Night Live’s most inspired parodies in recent years: The Office: Middle Earth. Bilbo and his fellow Tolkien creations work at a paper company run by a very Ricky Gervais-esque Gandalf (SNL regular Bobby Moynihan). Bilbo enjoys subtly taunting his deskmate Gollum (Taran Killam deserves an Emmy nod for nailing the voice alone) by encasing his “precious” in a bowl of jello.
The Office: Middle Earth is easily the best spoof SNL has done since the Louie/Lincoln mashup from 2012, but couldn’t they have shown us just a little more of Gandalf and Gollum singing?