Dem
49
GOP
51
Speaking of viral moments, this Saturday, around 11:35 p.m. ET, Saturday Night Live will return for its 50th season. This is a little later than usual for the show's season premiere. That is because they are going to deliver an episode every weekend save one between now and Election Day.
Beyond the fact that 50 is a pretty momentous number, it's widely believed that this will be the last rodeo for executive producer Lorne Michaels, who created the show and has overseen it for 45 of its 50 years (all but seasons 6-10). These things being the case, they are pulling out all the stops. Past cast members, and well-known friends of the show (e.g., Steve Martin) will be making frequent cameos. They've loaded up on rockstar hosts for the five shows from this weekend through the election: actor Jean Smart, comedian Nate Bargatze, musician Ariana Grande, actor Michael Keaton and comedian John Mulaney. Those names may not mean something to all readers, but for folks dialed into pop culture, and in particular for fans of the show, that list is golden.
What is of interest to us, of course, are the political sketches. It is fair to expect there will be at least one "presidential" sketch in each of the five episodes leading up to the election. It's already been announced that Maya Rudolph will return to play Kamala Harris. Her portrayal is very good, and very funny, but is not particularly biting. Also, Michaels said that current cast member James Austin Johnson will continue to play Trump. Johnson's portrayal is nowhere near as vicious as that of Alec Baldwin, who preceded Johnson in the role. It is, however, uncannily accurate. Thus far, the identity of the performers who will play Tim Walz and J.D. Vance has not been made public.
More specifically, our interest is whether the show might have some impact on the election. If so, it would not be unprecedented. Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford absolutely hurt the then-president, especially when Ford made the error of allowing his press secretary, Ron Nessen, to appear on the show. It made it seem as if Ford didn't understand he was being made the butt of jokes. More recently, Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin was devastating, and did much to help cement the then-VP candidate's reputation for being all hat, no cattle. To this day, many people believe that it was Palin who said "I can see Russia from my house," when it was actually Fey-as-Palin.
Given that the Rudolph-Harris portrayal is a known commodity, we doubt it will do any harm to the candidate. It is also likely, based on past precedent, that the Walz portrayal will only show up once or twice in the next five weeks, and will be fairly brief and probably not too rough, as he's a hard guy to be "mean" with. We're thinking something along the lines of Jason Sudeikis' portrayal of Joe Biden when Biden was VP, or maybe Phil Hartman's take on Bill Clinton, which was pretty affectionate.
On the other side of the aisle, it is true that Johnson's portrayal of Trump is also a known commodity. However, Michaels has said that the new season will see Johnson "reinvent" his take, explaining that viewers will see a "diminished" Trump. We take that to mean that it's gonna be word-salad time. Meanwhile, J.D. Vance bears more than a passing resemblance to Palin as a VP candidate, and could well be in for a beating (maybe they'll bring back Fey to play him, which would be a repeat of a gag the show used in 2016, having Melissa McCarthy play Sean Spicer, and which would make Trump's head explode). The bottom line is that our guess—based considerably more on our familiarity with the show, as opposed to our knowledge of politics—is that if SNL 50 ends up moving the needle, it will be to the detriment of the Republican ticket. (Z)