# Wait, there really is a DeAndre Cole and a What Up With That? that's being parodied? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113 "2021-10-24T19:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/1 "2021-10-24T19:30:11Z")
Doing some searching I found a video and a website for a real DeAndre Cole who has a show called _What Up With That?_. I had assumed that the SNL sketch was purely made up and not parodying anything real. It appears though that hardly anyone else knows this. The Wikipedia entry for the SNL sketches make no mention of what they are parodying. Furthermore, there don’t seem to be many other mentions of the real person and show on the Internet. The Talk page on the Wikipedia entry explicitly says that it’s not a parody of anything real. So what’s the truth here? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/DfO-LShPE_I/hqdefault.jpg "What Up With That?") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfO-LShPE_I) > **[DeAndre Cole | Singer Songwriter from Virginia Beach, VA](https://www.reverbnation.com/deandremusic)** > > Singer Songwriter | Virginia Beach, VA > **[What Up with That?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Up_with_That)** > > "What Up with That?" (also rendered "What's Up with That?" in some episodes) is a recurring sketch on the NBC television series Saturday Night Live. The sketch first aired in 2009. It stars Kenan Thompson as Diondre Cole, host of a talk show on BET. Supporting characters include the show's announcer, originally played by Will Forte, and later by Taran Killam and Mikey Day, Fred Armisen as Giuseppe, a Kenny G-like saxophone player, Jason Sudeikis as Vance, an overzealous track-suit-wearing b Th... > **[Talk:What Up with That?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:What_Up_with_That)** > > So "what's up" with the change from "What Up With That?" to "What'S Up With That?"? Am I the only one who noticed? 75.92.62.160 (talk) 19:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)Reply\[reply\] > So is this skit making fun of anything in real life? I always thought this was a parody of someone. > There are zero third party sources in this article and so it fails the notability requirement for a stand alone article. Active Banana (bananaphone 18:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)Reply\[reply\] > SNL wasn't the first to make "W... ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/2 "2021-10-24T19:43:26Z")
I don’t think that’s the same guy in your first two links. The first one looks like a religious program’s ripoff of the SNL sketch. The second link appears to be an obscure musician with a similar name. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/3 "2021-10-24T19:49:40Z")
I’m not sure if the two real DeAndre Coles are the same person or not. Note that the video is from 2011. The second link probably has recent photographs of the person it’s about. It’s possible that the person has changed somewhat in ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/4 "2021-10-24T19:53:50Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Note that the video is from 2011 Two years after the first SNL sketch. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2021, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/5 "2021-10-24T20:03:54Z")
For about the first two minutes I was wondering if this was some kind of Evangelical Christian knock-off of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” complete with a Drew Carey lookalike in the red shirt but usually they can afford more than wobbly stools on what appears to be a half-empty community center hastily filled up with props clearly salvaged from some abandoned mall. The video is on a channel associated with the “Rhema Bible Church” which is an “Accredited Bible College”, although who extended them accreditation and for what are questions to remain unanswered (and I mean that in the sense that I actually don’t want to know the answers rather than I just lack enough give-a-fuck to research them). What Evangelicals find entertaining is frequently bizarre in a “Albanian Ministry of Cultural Education” sort of way except with quoted-out-of-context Biblical passages standing in for “Shit Stalin Said”, but whether this is a parody of a satire, or what is unclear. I feel like the host missed the boat in not ending with, “Sorry we didn’t have time for Randy Quaid” in some kind of Kimmel-esque attempt to create a faux rivalry with a sort-of celebrity that the audience would recognize but I’m probably expecting too much sophistication in expecting that they could even rise to that base level of imitation. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2021, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/6 "2021-10-26T15:35:32Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > The first one looks like a religious program’s ripoff of the SNL sketch. And not a half-bad one at that. The DeAndre Cole character is maybe even better than Kenan’s. But the dancing tracksuit guy is a poor replacment for Sudeikis. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2021, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-there-really-is-a-deandre-cole-and-a-what-up-with-that-thats-being-parodied/953113/7 "2021-10-26T21:21:57Z")
It’s almost a note for note, beat for beat, word for word recreation of the sketch. You’d think a person would want to do something to put es own stamp on it. What’s the point of recreating an SNL sketch so precisely? It’s like what high school kids do.