Was that Really the Twin Falls Courthouse in SNL ‘Monkey Judge’ Skit?
An eagle-eyed person, with questionable taste in TV shows, has informed us that video of the Twin Falls County Courthouse was used in an SNL skit over the weekend.
Twin Falls County Courthouse on SNL
In the opening segment of the recent 'Monkey Judge' skit on Saturday Night Live, the show used footage of the exterior of a courthouse. In the 'You Might Be from Twin Falls, Idaho' Facebook group, Jim Wright shared a picture of the scene. He captioned it with:
I was watching this weeks episode of Saturday Night Live and there was a skit about a monkey/judge presiding over a courtroom. They showed the exterior of the building on the intro and the exit. Of all the stock footage of all the buildings in the world what are the odds…………… Immediately recognizable.
Twin Falls Courthouse in SNL Monkey Judge Skit
I don't know that I would have recognized the courthouse. In the sketch, they had scrubbed the name from the front of the building and the footage has to be pretty old. There are cables and towers on top of the building that aren't there anymore and some of the trees are clearly different. You can watch the whole skit from SNL below to see the few moments of fame for the Twin Falls County Courthouse.
There's no indication, other than the actual courthouse, that the skit is meant to take place in Twin Falls. So I don't think they were taking a jab at us in any way with the sketch. This isn't the first time Twin Falls has been featured in national shows. A number of movies have been filmed here and we catch the eye of late-night hosts pretty often.