Peyton's SNL Performance

Last night, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning hosted Saturday Night Live. After years of being entertained by his commercials, I was excited to see what he could do in front of a live audience. For someone who is not an actor by trade, he did pretty well. One of his funniest performances was in a mock commercial that spoofed the National Football League's United Way commercials, in which NFL stars are seen helping out in the community. In the SNL parody, Manning plays a game of football with a group of young kids. The comedy ensues as he verbally berates the children for not playing well enough and his passes knock the kids to the ground. He goes on to teach the kids "lessons" such as how to break into a car, and he hires a tattoo artist to tattoo his own face onto a young boy's leg. The skit was hilarious, but did the comedy come with a price? Manning is widely regarded as one of the NFL's "golden boys," a great role model and an ambassador for the league. The performance obviously was in jest, but the sight of Manning harassing children still might not sit well with some members of the public. These people might stop buying into Manning's squeaky-clean image. If I was Manning's publicist or one of the Colts' PR people, I would have been just a little bit nervous about this performance. You never know when an audience is going to take something too seriously.