Key & Peele

For sketch comics Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, both sons of black fathers and white mothers, biracialism is liberation, a cultural all-access pass, a skeleton key to any lock they care to try. The duo impersonates a wide world of black men, from nerds to thugs, sports icons to buppies. They tackle racially charged issues and ideas like no one else on television. In their best-known recurring bit, Peele addresses viewers in the guise of a calm, carefully controlled Barack Obama and Key, as his aggravated id, Luther, barks what the President really thinks and feels. Fearless, they make a blistering point about the Trayvon Martin tragedy and dare, without being disrespectful, to get a laugh. Yet they are just as likely to transform themselves into Italians mobsters, Mexicans, Indians, even various and sundry white guys. Their sketches evoke Dave Chappelle one minute, Sid Caesar the next. They break new ground even as they lay claim to all of comedy’s traditions. For its stars and their creative team’s inspired satirical riffs on our racially divided and racially conjoined culture, Key & Peele receives a Peabody Award.