When it comes to classic, beloved, and frequently quoted Saturday Night Live sketches, the “More Cowbell” Blue Öyster Cult sketch from 2000 featuring Will Ferrell and host Christopher Walken is high on the list. (It has fans on both sides of the political aisle, as illustrated by Daniel Kibblesmith’s collection of Donald Trump Jr. tweets on the subject.) But the comedy world was rocked this week when Bloomberg opinion writer Noah Smith posted the below two tweets about the sketch, in which he argued that the “real joke” of the sketch is that there is no joke, therefore outing himself as someone who doesn’t understand the “Cowbell” sketch at all:

The real joke of the SNL "more cowbell" skit is that there actually is no joke. It's not funny at all, and "more cowbell" has zero meaning or significance. The actual humor is in watching people straining to understand the joke, or tricking themselves into thinking they get it.

Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) April 25, 2019

The real joke here is that humor warrants sophisticated analysis and yet many people are eager to write it off as ineffable nonsense. Or worse, as "gaslighting," which makes no sense in this context. You're not making the audience doubt their sanity. You're making them laugh.

William Bibbiani (@WilliamBibbiani) April 26, 2019