The show, hosted by Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie, started off, as expected, by lampooning the recent presidential debates with Alec Baldwin debuting his spot-on Donald Trump impression while recent Emmy victor Kate McKinnon was in top form, bringing a new enthusiasm and energy to her beloved Hillary Clinton caricature.
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“Saturday Night Live” returned with a vengeance last night, with a cold open spoof of last week’s Presidential debates. It’s also tough to watch Baldwin and not think about Darrell Hammond’s brilliant impression or Anthony Atamanuik’s unhinged take he took on the road (with James Adomian as Bernie Sanders) earlier this year.
Kate McKinnon, who does an equally comical version of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, pretended to pull the obviously prepared buzz term “Trumped-up, trickle-down” from the top of her head when asked about the American economy.
Despite inviting Trump on as a host, Lorne Michaels’ creatives unleashed the talented Baldwin whose mannerisms and speech patterns uncannily recreated the Donald for Saturday Night Live as it began its 42nd season.
“When I get it, I’m going to set my alarm for 3:20 a.m. and go sit on my golden toilet bowl and tweet about it until completion”, he said. One segment, featuring cast member Cecily Strong as Melania Trump wondering about the people walking outside Trump Tower, contained just that sketch, sandwiched between two commercial breaks. “I am going to so calm and so presidential that all of you watching are going to cream your jeans”.
Baldwin’s Trump tried to make the case that Clinton’s temperament should be questioned instead of his, as the sketch satirized Clinton’s apparent strategy of coaxing Trump into making unforced errors.
SNL’s writers even homo-eroticize Trump’s relationship with conservative pundit Sean Hannity, with whom Trump claimed he privately shared his opposition to the Iraq war.
When he was told by Che that he had to stay longer he immediately blamed the microphone for being faulty, like Trump did directly after the televised event.
“She broke it with Obama, she and Obama stole my microphone. And the best temperament”, Baldwin’s Trump blamed Clinton and President Barack Obama for tampering with his microphone. They took it to Kenya.
The lengthy SNL skit took aim at Trump’s struggles with a sniffle during the TV face-off, his blaming of his defeat on a broken microphone and his odd pronunciation of China. With candidates and issues that, nearly daily, rub up against some of the most contentious issues in American life – race, gender, and class, to name a few – it’s a heavy lift to make anyone laugh about any of this it all. “I mean, this man is clearly unfit to be commander-in-chief”.
The “SNL” version of the Trump and Hillary chaos is everything. Baldwin did a spot-on imitation of Donald Trump, with numerous Trump-isms you’d expect as well as a shout-out to some of the post-debate internet memes. She later “threatened” the public by saying “But if you don’t elect me I will continue to run for the President until the day I die”.
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The premiere – which was hosted by actress Margot Robbie – also poked fun at fact checking with the “Suicide Squad” star “fact checking” her own opening monologue. Baldwin has guest-hosted a record-setting 16 times since his SNL debut in 1990.
