Saturday Night Live
5 HN mentions · mentioned in 5 months, 2019–2025
4:12 · 4.4M views · May 5, 2019
An SNL sketch in which Adam Sandler plays a tour operator who bluntly clarifies what his Italy tours can and cannot do for customers' lives.
Used as a funny reference for realistic expectations about travel and whether it fixes your life.
5 comments from Hacker News
I'm young and nowhere close to retiring, but I already have friends who have bought into the whole retire early train. Except, it's kinda like the recent SNL skit Romano Tours^[1]. If you're sad now, you're gonna be sad then. Retiring isn't gonna fix their problems. They're not going to be suddenly happy. And even if everything goes right (no kids, no health problems, high income, low cost of living) and they retire "early", that's still going to be in their late 30's, early 40's. And then what? My friends claim they'll figure something out, but if they've lived 40 years without any sense of self actualization, I'm skeptical that they'd suddenly find themselves. I'm not saying one should work a meaningless job instead of retiring, but I don't get waiting for decades to find one's purpose in life. Might as well wait for Godot. And if retiring early doesn't work out, one can end up like the main character in Ikiru: 30 years of perfect attendance and absolutely nothing to show for it. But hey, maybe that's just my anxiety about starting out adult life. [1]: this video
Definitely important to define terms. Seems like in this case experiences = thrill-seeking or "bought experiences". For that type of thing, I'm reminded of this SNL sketch about a tour operator that tries to set realistic expectations about what going to Italy can or can't do for your life this video > There's a lot a vacation can do. Help you unwind. See some different-looking squirrels. But it cannot fix deeper issues like how you behave in group settings or your general baseline mood. That is a job for incremental lifestyle changes sustained over time. We can give you the zipline. We cannot give you the ability to say "wheeee" and mean it.
To the people complaining that they can't make friends or maintain meaningful relationships outside of physical in-office contact, I wanna point them out to the classic SNL sketch "Romano Tours" where Adam Sandler is a tourism operator selling trips to Italy: this video Me, I have zero issues bonding with remote colleagues but then again, I have local friends too with whom I connect mostly through telecommunication tools (like WhatsApp) and occasionally meet in person. Quoting from the SNL sketch, and I can't stress this enough: "If you are sad where you are and then you get on a plane to Italy, in Italy there will be the same sad you from before".
My version of his advice would be "if a stranger invites you to a party, don't turn them down." Also, your comment reminds me of this classic SNL skit: this video "If you're sad now, and you get on a plane to Italy, the 'you' in Italy will still be the same sad you from before! Does that make sense?"
Reminds me of this all-time great SNL skit: Romano Tours ( this video ) "We can take you on a hike... We cannot turn you into somebody who likes hiking."