Eagle-eyed comedy fans couldn’t keep shut after Saturday Night Live returned with its new cast and a sketch, which felt too familiar. The sketch in question is the one about Charmin bears as fans think that it bears striking similarities to Joel Haver’s animated video titled “Toiler Paper Bear”. However, the YouTuber has a different view on the confusion. Read on to know all about Joel Haver and how he responded to these accusations.
Who Is Joel Haver?
Joel Haver is a 24-year-old YouTube content creator, also known for his variety of short films and unique animation style. He rose to fame in late November 2020 with his most popular video to date, “Playing an RPG for the first time”. Speaking of his comedy style, it is a mix of deadpan (Dry humor) and meta-humor along with some cringe comedy too.
Joel uses both, live action and digitally animated videos for his diverse range of topics, expanding from video games, and television, to real-life events. Joel has more than 1.6 million subscribers on his YouTube channel by the name Joel Haver.
The Canadian YouTuber studied at Belchertown High School in Belchertown, Massachusetts, and secured a bachelor’s degree in Film, Cinema and Video Studies from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
During his film school, Joel got involved in casting, scriptwriting, production etc, but he always had a passion for lifting his camera and filming videos. He then decided to become a YouTuber, and thanks to his parents’ support, survived the struggle that he faced in the initial years. His father, who appeared in one of his most successful videos, died from cancer in December 2019.
What’s The SNL Controversy?
A parody sketch by SNL has come into question as fans wonder if they have copied it from Joel’s sketch, “Toilet Paper Bears”. If you’ve watched the latest episode of SNL, you must have seen Mike Teller appear in blue fur to play a young Charmin Bear, who wants to get rid of the “butt-wiping” family business and pursue his true passion: Dance.
However, Kenan Thompson plays his disapproving dad while Heidi Gardner plays the role of his confusing mom. Punkie Johnson is portrayed as his ‘peacekeeping sister’, and Bowel Yang plays a fellow dancing bear, who mistook Charmin’s kitchen as their bathroom. After watching this parody sketch, many believe that “SNL” stole Joel Haver’s animated video titled: “Toilet Paper Bear”.
If you don’t know this, Haver’s video “Toiler Paper Bear” was released in July 2022, and features similar blue bears, and an artistic son who was to get out of the family business. The only difference between the two videos is that SNL’s delivery was “more in line with a variety show that’s been on for nearly 50 years,” compared to Haver’s animated video.
Haver Doesn’t Care Much…
As fans continue to point out these striking similarities, Joel Haver has come forward and it appears that he isn’t bothered at all. Even though Joel called any likeness between his bear family and SNL‘s “pretty alarming,” however, he stated that it could be a case of “parallel thinking” or simply a “wild coincidence.”
In a YouTube video, he addressed the accusation related to SNL stealing his sketch: “When it comes to these stealing accusations, I always err on the side of coincidence. I think parallel thinking does happen more often than not.”
He continued, “When it comes to the Charmin bears thing, there’s a lot of coincidences that would have to line up to make it truly a coincidence, but I don’t think it was malicious. It was either a subconscious borrowing from somebody on their writers’ staff who saw my video, or it was a wild coincidence.”
Why Is Joel Defending SNL?
In his YouTube video, where the SNL parody sketch can be seen playing in the background, Joel Haver explained the similarities and differences. Joels stated: “My video was a Sharman Bears parody where the dad is disapproving of his son who’s going to college, he doesn’t wanna be a butt-wiping bear anymore, and wants to dance instead.”
As for the similarities, Joel revealed, “It’s the same blue bears, the dad has glasses, they’re in their house.” After taking a pause, Joel stated that even though, it was pretty alarming to see a similar sketch on SNL, but then quoted one of his old videos on a “Trope”, and said he got a lot of comments that Auntie Donna already did this. He revealed that he made the video independently, and there was no chance, he could have copied it.
Joel concluded, “If I still was a smaller creator, which I was for a long time, I could see it rubbing me the wrong way and me being a little more likely to believe they did steal it,” he said. “I have to recognize I’m in a position to not be bothered by it.”
