Key & Peele shows how Neil deGrasse Tyson uses science to argue with his wife

Have you ever wondered if famed science popularizer and sci-fi movie explainer Neil deGrasse Tyson uses that enormous mental faculties of his to get out of sticky situations by just befuddling people? I mean, frankly, if I were half as bright as he is, I’d be pulling this stuff, too. One can only imagine how good it feels to whip out science facts and figures and history like this at the drop of a hat.

On Wednesday night’s episode of Key & Peele, the comedians parodied the famous scientist as he gets himself out of trouble and arguments with his wife over regular married people problems — like not taking the dog out to its business and not being ready in time to leave for an event — by attempting to confuse her with scientific theories posited to a fake audience using holograms and cool images on the screen. But the comedians also joke later in the sketches that Tyson tries to use science to get out of bigger marital problems like supposedly cheating. Now let’s be extremely clear, this is obviously a joke and I sincerely doubt Key or Peele are trying to imply anything about Tyson or make these jokes in a mean-spirited fashion. That’s why it’s so funny, because it’s so completely far-fetched and untrue.

That was the first of the three segments below—there were two others, in which Tyson also uses his wacky Carl Sagan-esque explanations of the vast scale of the cosmos and time, and the uncertainty principle, and the many universes, and so on, to get out of arguments with his wife. Plus the dog is named Sputnik. What’s great is how well they nailed the wide-eyed tone of the series—“well, actually”–and plunked it down into a random domestic context. And everything is just trivial, man, once you realize that we’re living in the last second of the calendar year of the universe.

The tone of this sketch perfectly nails the Cosmos style, and Tyson’s unique way of speaking when he’s explaining things on the show. Check it out, and be sad with us that Key & Peele is ending soon. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll be the ones to host next year’s Oscars.