Trump’s Large Adult Sons Are ‘Saturday Night Live’s Best Characters

This past weekend saw the return of something that almost feels magical now — a truly memorable Saturday Night Live recurring character. Bill Hader‘s Stefon has always been a bizarre delight, and that remained true when he returned to the Weekend Update desk to make recommendations for St. Patrick’s Day. However, Hader’s triumphant return highlighted a problem that SNL has had for a while now: in recent seasons, there have been very few memorable recurring characters.

Part of this has to do with the shifting nature of the show. Saturday Night Live has always been political, but ever since the 2016 election, the show has become aggressively so with most of its funniest bits hanging off of the political scandal of the day. From Kate McKinnon‘s Jeff Session and Kellyanne Conway to Aidy Bryant‘s Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Beck Bennett‘s shirtless Vladimir Putin, SNL has some really wonderful political impersonators in its main cast. But because these impressions are so connected to the news and today’s political climate, they can only really come out when a new, scandalous story warrants their appearance. That’s why Mikey Day and Alex Moffat‘s takes on Trump’s man children sons are so much fun.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. are perfectly positioned for Saturday Night Live‘s wrath. They’re two figures who are deeply connected to the Trump administration, but as a general rule, they stay out of large-scale Trump administration stories (save for the revelation of Donald Trump, Jr.’s ties to Russia). These impresions can be as politically scathing as Saturday Night Live has become in recent years all while being as delightfully absurd as SNL’s characters have historically been. Also, to me, the Trump sons’ Weekend Update segments are consistently one of the funniest parts of the show.

I have the utmost respect for SNL‘s more ambitious sketches. “Kellywise” was as masterfully creepy as it was smart, and “Welcome to Hell” stands as a great foil to female empowerment songs. However, the comfort sketches I find myself returning to time and time again involve Moffat’s Eric and Day’s Don, Jr.

Day’s overly slick arrogance perfectly balances the bumbling mess that is Moffat’s wide-eyed Eric. The sketches always follow the same format — the overly polished Don, Jr. tries to give an interview that makes the Trump administration look competent while the dim-witted Eric blurts out administration secrets and insults about his father between eating Fun Dip and discovering books. The combination of the arrogant and smarter-than-average character hanging out with the bumbling idiot is a trope that has existed in comedy for years. It’s Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan in 30 Rock, Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell in A Night at the Roxbury, Norbert and Daggett in The Angry Beavers. Though the “smart” character is so confident that their dim-witted partner is the butt of the joke, they’re part of its too. It’s their lack of self-awareness paired with the shear stupidity of the situation that makes it work.

Also, SNL‘s take on Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. echoes the fear around this administration in a way that’s more subtle than most of the show’s political sketches. Last week, The Washington Post published a piece arguing that Saturday Night Live gets the Trump brothers wrong. Eric isn’t the dumber one, the piece argues, and both sons are accomplished in their own ways. If anything, it’s Don, Jr. who deserves the show’s pinpointed wrath. However, Day and Moffat’s characterizations transcend beyond the man children they are playing; they echo the administration itself. SNL‘s Eric and Don, Jr. are two men who have an extraordinary amount of access and power, no political experience, huge egos, and a knack for spilling massive secrets with little to no prompting. They’re constantly stumbling and failing, but because of who they are, there are never consequences for their missteps. That’s the frustrating position those who oppose Trump see this administration in, and what better way to portray it than through unabashed nepotism?

Even when you remove the political skewering, Day and Moffat’s impressions are still great. The way Moffat contorts his face and insecurely tries to mimic his brother’s hand movements is distractingly funny, much like Fred Armisen and Kirsten Wiig’s Garth and Kat sketches. That’s nothing to say of the acidic and pandering sweetness hiding behind these characters. Whenever Don, Jr. has to correct his brother or explain a tough word like “golf car”, he’s never mad or flustered. SNL‘s Don, Jr. knows he’s stuck with his brother, and his arrogance in guiding Eric feels a bit like the blind leading the blind. Since the 2016 political season, SNL has presented several scathing takedowns of the Trump administration, but the show’s portrayal of Trump’s man children sons may be one of the takes that cuts the deepest.

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