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Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live brought back Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump last night for a cold open taking on the man who’s on everyone’s lips and everywhere in the news these days — Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
With Trump making news several times a day, SNL’s writers have more material than they can handle, trying to squeeze mentions of as many events of the week as they can into a sketch. But with news of Russian involvement in our election escalating, the show placed a spotlight on Trump’s relationship with Putin, who Beck Bennett plays shirtless and with just the right amount of sneer.

After Trump and Kate McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway discuss his cabinet picks — Rick Perry will make a great Secretary of Energy, Trump reasons, because he had lots of it on Dancing with the Stars — Trump says he now just has to pick who’ll be president. Distressed to learn it’s him, he asks if he can do the job part time, like Howard Stern.
Trump and Melania (Cecily Strong) hear a noise, and it’s Putin, coming down the chimney like Santa, bearing gifts. But really, he’s rejoicing at the gift given him, an American president so simpatico with his interests.

Putin: So, you trust me more than American CIA?

Trump: All I know is I won.

Putin. Wow. This guy is blowing my mind.
Putin praises Trump, telling him how happy Russians are that he’s been elected, calling him, “the best candidate, the smartest candidate, the Manchurian candidate.” He then presents him with a Christmas gift, an elf on the shelf that’s clearly a listening device.
John Goodman then appears as Rex Tillerson, the Exxon/Mobil CEO whom Trump is nominating for Secretary of State, portrayed here as being so tight with Putin he calls him “Pootie.” The two engage in a secret handshake, then plan how they’ll set up new oil drilling in Russia as soon as American sanctions are lifted. All the while, Trump looks on, disengaged, Putin and Tillerson trying to shuffle him off to a corner like a child as they plan a vast expansion of their business interests in the White House. He’s fine with it, as long as they don’t say “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night” without him. (They do.)
This week’s host was Casey Affleck, who’s promoting his new movie Manchester by the Sea. At first, he wonders aloud why he was picked to host the Christmas episode instead of more veteran hosts as Baldwin and Goodman, two of the most frequent hosts in SNL history, walk on, then walk off quickly when he calls appearing in the cold open then the monologue “desperate.”

Affleck is regarded as a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for his new film, which is by all accounts incredibly depressing, a point he makes numerous times. After bringing Baldwin and Goodman back, along with an inexplicable appearance by “Black Santa” (Kenan Thompson), the monologue falls apart, ironically minutes after Goodman notes that between him, Baldwin, and Affleck, they’ve hosted the show 31 times. Maybe they should have asked Steve Martin?
The first sketch is a commercial parody that we have to assume is one of SNL’s paid product placements, a fake ad for Dunkin Donuts that at times promotes features on their real-life app. But the writers made the most of this, featuring Affleck as an “actual customer,” a lowlife with a heavy Boston accent wrecking havoc in the store – smoking, calling customers douchebags, hitting his buddy in the nuts, which he teases as a “Vanilla Nut Tap” – as he talks about how much he loves the brand.

Fred Armisen turns up in the next sketch, appearing with McKinnon as speakers at a Microsoft (placement #2?) tech conference in this mildly funny look at the extremes of political correctness. They’re introducing a new robot, the Helix 900, played by Bennett, who reels off an impressive lists of capabilities before adding that he’s attracted to men. As audience member Alex Moffatt tests the robot’s skills with a math equation, the robot answers correctly before adding more about how much he loves sex with men. Affleck, also in the crowd, questions the need for a robot to be programmed with sexuality, as McKinnon and Armisen answer as if he’s been discussing a person. When Kyle Mooney appears as obviously gay robot #2, Affleck has many questions, but increasingly can’t ask them without looking like an asshole.

Next came a parody of Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis,” featuring Thompson and musical guest Chance the Rapper as the legendary duo rapping about our last Christmas with Barack Obama in the White House. The parody celebrates the social progress of Obama’s time in the White House on many fronts, including legal weed and gay marriage, while taking digs at some of the damaging changes to come with lines like, “hey kids, enjoy the presents while you can, ‘cause next year you might get a bomb from Iran.” Overall, a well-done parody, enhanced at the end by an appearance from DMC himself, and featuring Affleck as a break-dancing Jesus.

McKinnon’s UFO abductee returns for her third appearance, this time to chronicle an odd encounter with Santa’s helper Kringlemaus, a 9-foot-tall goat man who is Santa’s helper in a German legend. While her friends Strong and Affleck encountered the real Santa, and all the sweetness, light and treats that come with him, McKinnon had a different experience, getting dragged by Kringlemaus’s dog sled before being put to work at a reindeer stable and having her “knocker” rammed by Kringlemouse’s goat wife. She also met an elf named Shart, and joined him in checking reindeer for worms. No cast breaking this time out, but a reliable laugh-generator that has yet to wear out its welcome.

Remember the good old days when Weekend Update would do jokes on a wide variety of topics, and no one topic got more than one or two jokes? That was Weekend Update for most of its lifespan. I miss that Update now.
Of course, given that Donald Trump has come to dominate our news, Colin Jost and Michael Che do what they can to tackle the Trump revelations of the week. Che opened the segment by noting that Trump’s inauguration is a month away, and that “people are starting to notice some red flags,” accompanied by a photo of Russian flags. Some of the segment’s better jokes including Jost ragging on Obama’s telling Putin, about Russian hacking, to “cut it out,” saying, “I’m not sure you’re going to strike fear in the heart of an evil dictator with Uncle Joey’s catchphrase from Full House.” Che got some big laughs comparing Chris Christie, shut out of Trump’s administration, to Luca Brasi from The Godfather rehearsing his speech to meet with the power broker, and comparing Trump’s bizarre meeting with Kanye West this week to the Scooby-Doo gang working with the Harlem Globetrotters. “How would that even help? What would that do?”
Vanessa Bayer and Armisen returned as the characters who are reluctant friends with various dictators, this time friends of Putin. They criticize him, but only in whispery voices, as if afraid to talk loud enough for Putin to hear, and by the end have Che doing the same about Jost. A one-joke bit, reliable but predictable.
The next sketch was something of a throwaway. Affleck, Strong and McKinnon play three Long Islanders putting on a parody of the nativity, filled with horribly cliched and stolen jokes (i.e. Affleck’s Joseph loves to say “My wife,” a la Borat.) A few quick laughs at the cheesiness of their effort led to little, as the sketch, which found them interviewed by Mooney’s skeptical news reporter, went nowhere.

Next, McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton returned in a parody of the scene from Love, Actually where Andrew Lincoln declares his love for Keira Knightley via cue card, doing the same to Strong’s Donald Trump elector, and trying to convince her to vote for “literally anyone else” when the electoral college meets to officially elect the next president on Monday. The brief sketch packed a lot in, with Clinton’s cue cards laying out the case against Trump, making too much of a case for her (Strong gives her a “move it along” hand gesture), and asking her to keep in mind that “If Donald Trump becomes president, he will kill us all.”

Bayer and Thompson returned, with Affleck, as Santa’s horniest elves, begging for spankings. This escalates quickly, with Affleck offering to have a huge Hershey’s kiss placed up his butt, and Bayer asking to be peed on. A quick few laughs, but maybe time to retire this one.

The final sketch finds Affleck and Mooney as two blue collar guys passive-aggressively hitting on Bayer, building to a confrontation that finds everyone around them being equally passive-aggressive as Mooney stabs Affleck. I found nothing here to justify the four minutes this sketch occupied.

And that’s a wrap on SNL for 2016. The show returns on January 14 with host Felicity Jones, and musical guest Sturgill Simpson.
Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.