SNL Star Sarah Sherman Tested Out Our Most Comically Cringey Gifts
Luckily, gross gifts are perennial. Birthdays, graduations, big life milestones — they’re all an excuse for Sherman to dig out her most stomach-churning stuff.
So who better to review a selection of very gross gifts, all of them hand-picked by Wirecutter’s gifts team and wrapped in the brightest, boldest paper we could find?
From candy-encased scorpions to long-range fart machines, here are some of Sherman’s favorites among the most off-putting, nauseating, and entertaining gifts we could find.
Each bean in this game is delicious or disgusting, with flavors like peach or barf and juicy pear or booger.
This game of chance is decidedly more disgusting than say, Yahtzee. And the high stakes — knowing you could be chomping down on a dead-fish-flavored Jelly Belly at any spin — make it all the more dramatic.
Luckily, Sherman’s first spin landed on a black bean that happened to be licorice, as opposed to burnt rubber.
“I love Jelly Belly’s black licorice, and I just ordered a five-pound bag of black licorice jelly beans and a five-pound bag of the cinnamon jelly beans as well,” she said during our shoot.
Sherman also told us she would Bean-Boozle her “best friend,” SNL writer Jack Bensinger, as retribution for the time he made everyone at a party sniff smelling salts. We also like to think this is a great gift for adults and kids alike, but we digress.
With 15 different fart sounds and a 100-foot range, this tooter has the potential to create hours of laughter. It even comes with sticky tape, so you can hide the machine under the chair of an unsuspecting target.
When she was 13, Sherman actually put whoopee cushions on every chair at her bat mitzvah. So it’s no wonder a remote-controlled fart machine — which is beloved by one of our 8-year-old junior testers — was right up her alley. In particular, she appreciated the variety of fart lengths (a healthy mix of long- and short-form flatulence). She also enjoyed the “tinny sound of the speaker,” because ”you get kind of a metallic, wet, textural fart.”
Channeling her inner Wirecutter writer, Sherman put the fart machine to the test, clomping around the room with the remote to see how far she could go while still churning out farts. And she was happy to report that it worked quite well within the stated 100-foot range.
“Small parts, not for children under three years,” Sherman said, reading from the box. “But it is for a child’s sense of humor.”
These lollipops are a triple-dog-dare in gift form, either for the most squeamish or fearless eater you know.
Scorpion Suckers are among Sherman’s longtime favorites, and they would make a stellar stocking stuffer, birthday surprise, or just-thinking-of-you gift for the adventurous eater in your life (they come in banana, apple, blueberry and strawberry flavors). Though she’s never crunched through the scorpion itself, Sherman said she’d give this set of lollipops to fellow comedian Eric André, who’s “always eating crickets or bugs.”
How many licks does it take to get to the eight-legged center of a scorpion pop? We’ll let André get back to us on that one.
For the budding ornithologist in your life, a barn owl pellet kit brings back memories of middle school , and it can result in some pretty cool finds, too.
Let’s call them what they are: Owl pellets are dried balls of bird vomit, and they rule. The hard, gray lumps of detritus contain all of the indigestible bits that owls regurgitate, like rodent bones, feathers, fur, teeth, and even insect exoskeletons. (“I got a tiny little bird clavicle!” Sherman exclaimed.) The kit includes a helpful index of what you might find in each pellet, as well as forceps and a paddle prick for dislodging even the most stubborn mouse skulls.
Sherman, who dissected owl pellets at science camp as a kid, thinks this would make a great gift for everyone, including her grandma.
Though this book is maybe not for bedtime, it contains truly confounding examples of natural camouflage and unappetizing textures. It’s a riot for kids and adults alike.
We should have thought ahead and wrapped Colin Jost’s memoir, A Very Punchable Face, for Sherman (whose longstanding bit on SNL’s Weekend Update is to ruthlessly roast Jost). But this goofy picture book will have to do.
“This is my autobiography, Butterface,” Sherman joked upon opening the Butt or Face book, “she’s got a hot body, but her face …” True to the book’s title, each new page displays a head-scratching or grotesque cross-section of an animal, and it’s your job to determine whether it’s the front or hind quarters. Sherman — who actually has a joke about this animal — accurately guessed the butt-like face of a star-nosed mole.
Senior gifts writer Mari Uyehara calls this book “a classic in the genre,” and she recommends it for younger kids. Sherman joked that it’s better off in the hands of an adult who’s already well-versed in butts.
These mini plastic toilets come with lollipop “plungers,” to dip into the bowls of sour powder, and they provide a hefty dose of ’90s nostalgia.
These absurdly packaged candies come in classic, tongue-dyeing flavors: green apple, blue raspberry, and watermelon. “You guys should do Hot Ones, but it’s sour ones, and you have to eat this,” Sherman joked.
“I know exactly who I would give this to,” she said. “My friend Trish who works in sound at SNL gives me fun candy all the time, and she gave me little toxic waste barrels full of sour slime …. It’s fun to give people exact mirror images of the presents they already give you.”
This article was edited by Annemarie Conte and Catherine Kast.
