Microsoft makes SNL skit introducing the new Helix 900 and 950 productivity robots

Sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live took a swipe at modern technology and a seemingly long forgotten company this past weekend.

Microsoft’s name a logo made it into a sketch about the company introducing its new human-like productivity robots that happened to be inexplicably programmed to identify as gay.

Helix 900 and 950 were two humanoid robots designed by Microsofties to embody “a robotic employee with processing speeds 50 times faster than a human and can increase office efficiency by 9,000 percent.” Despite the Helix 900 and 950’s productivity numbers, crowd go-er Casey Affleck seems to be puzzled by the robot’s persistence in off-handly showing interest in men after each impressively quoted statistics.

Admittedly, the sketch is less about Microsoft as a company and more about making light of the sometimes hurtful rhetoric that unfortunately follow people of the LGBT community.

While Apple has been in the crosshairs of SNL comedic sketches for some time as the company’s white room design videos and Steve Jobs’s eccentric personality have been comedic gold for the show, it’s been a while since the sketch comedy show took aim at Microsoft.

Perhaps in lieu of the company’s very public mishap with its AI Twitter bot,  Tay, SNL found interest in company’s cache, or perhaps the crew just has some extra powder blue shirts hanging around they wanted to use again. Whatever the reason SNL chose to spoof Microsoft this time, this new skit’s progressive tone and contentious nature may at least help to wash the sour taste of the company’s last run in with SNL that involved Clippy.

Further reading: comedy, gay, Microsoft, Robot, SNL