In his long tenure on SNL, Fred Armisen displayed a preternatural knack for accents, a talent that was so disarming and hilarious that it would often cause comic heavyweights like Kristen Wiig to break character. In a recent performance at a charity benefit, Armisen put his peerless mimicry to good use, doing a four-minute segment on every single New York accent he could muster.
Armisen takes suggestions from the audience, and we get his astute explanations—and subsequent performances—of accents in Astoria, the Upper West Side, the East Village, and Long Island, among others.
