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Given the president’s bizarre week, it’s little surprise that Saturday Night Live brought back Alec Baldwin to play him during his strange press conference this week, presenting an only slightly exaggerated version of his greatest hits and lies.
Baldwin boasted about the great results of his latest physical, which found him “6’7″, 185 pounds, shredded,” referred to his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as Kim’s Dinner for Schmucks, and made his case for the wall on Mexico’s border in monosyllabic caveman terms, grunting, “We need wall. Wall works. Wall makes safe.”
This is why, he said, he needs to fake this national emergency.
He took questions from the press, wondering why he didn’t just build a wall around CNN’s Jim Acosta, introduced new attorney general William Barr as “dead man walking,” and called being president his “personal hell.”
The boldest line of the sketch did something SNL rarely does in making the studio audience feel genuinely uneasy, as he floated the idea of using the death penalty for non-violent crimes.
“You shoplift, bing bing, two in the back of the head.” For an impression that has long since devolved into empty parody, it was the closest thing to satire we’ve seen from Baldwin in this role in a long time.
First time host Don Cheadle brought back something we haven’t seen in awhile, too: a funny monologue, landing solid jokes with a physical routine. After talking about the OCD nature of his projects, since he did the movies, Traffic, Rush Hour, and Crash, in that order, he talked about how fans know him from different projects. Guys with a “my man” expression know him from Boogie Nights; those who offer a prayer, Hotel Rwanda. Leslie Jones came out towards the end for a perfect representation of an intrusive fan, demanding not only photos with Cheadle, but that he snap a photo of her, posing.
Day, Moffat, McKinnon and Mooney play high school kids doing their school news report with Cheadle as a teacher who is way too friendly and inappropriate with them, bragging about not taking the vodka away from kids on a school trip and promising to share all the juicy gossip on the school’s teachers, including who’s driving Uber on weekends. Cheadle also reveals how he spilled coffee on an older teacher hoping to see his body, and says that he’s “shredded.” He then starts to remove his shirt to show his “V,” and Day looks appropriately horrified. By the end of the sketch, Cheadle is revealing that he brought edibles to an event for kids, and receives a text on air – he’s in trouble.
A parody of Extreme Baking Championship asked contestants to prepare cakes in the form of cartoon characters, and surprise, they’re awful. Leslie Jones’ Olaf from Frozen looks like someone smashed a box or Oreos into a tub of whipped cream. “I did a bad job,” says Jones, whose cake tastes as bad as it looks. Cheadle’s cake goes for Cookie Monster, who comes out looking like a scary blue blob that barely survived a nuclear accident, or the deformed SpongeBob from the “ThIs Is FiNe” meme. Heidi Gardner offers up a perfect SpongeBob that for some reason the judges remain unimpressed by. As Gardner protests, Cheadle’s Cookie Monster abomination becomes sentient. “Please destroy me. I feel nothing but pain,” says the cake, as blue fluid spews forth from his maw. Kyle Mooney’s cake is a terrible Yoda holding his penis, and the judges admit, they have a tough decision ahead.
Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant play a Greek couple running a wedding venue in a parody of such commercials – a close cousin of the Grand Prospect Hall couple and SNL’s “Chandelier” parody of them — that touches on every cheesy detail you find in such places, from carpeted bathrooms to a location in Queens “across from the where taxis go to sleep.” They have everything there from dusty sconces to “the youngest valets you can imagine.” Cheadle plays their “world renowned chef,” who presents his offerings as “the butter, seashells. The rolls, hard and big,” and green beans “guaranteed to be kissed by a mouse.” Cheadle is also the venue’s photographer and DJ, with lights “guaranteed to scare and confuse your grandma.” Nothing new here, but some funny bits within.
Cheadle and Mooney play human-sized cockroaches in a “Roach-Ex” ad, generally being intrusive houseguests of Gardner and Mikey Day until Cheadle takes it too far and has sex with Gardner. “You had sex with my wife,” says a mortified Day. “Somebody had to,” says Cheadle. The use of Roach-Ex now becomes a violent revenge fantasy, with Day clutching the can in one hand and swilling from a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other. The confrontation that follows recalls an SNL that used to take chances in one of the best-written sketches of the current season, with Cheadle embracing the role of a deranged convict roach, and Day finding his manhood called into question.
Bennett and Cheadle play two roughnecks in a dive bar who get into a fight. They dance around each other, each prodding the other to land the first punch, but when Day puts a ridiculously chipper song on the jukebox – “Lollipop,” by Mika – the mood changes, and the two can’t help but put a little boogie in their fighting steps. They decide to wait the song out, and it turns into a full-on dance scene. Cheadle and Bennett have a blast with this and so does the cast and the audience. This was pure joy, a strong laugh, and a great job by all involved.
Moffat and McKinnon came to the Update desk as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, trying not to gloat about their victory over the president in the negotiations on the border wall but failing, breaking into childish giggles at the thought that the president only got two percent of what he was hoping for. “Two percent, I can’t drink milk that rich,” says Schumer. “I’d explode.” McKinnon threw in the Pelosi clap, and could barely contain her laughter throughout.
Day brought Mort Felner to the desk as a “supercentenarian,” which is someone over 110 years old. Dapper in a cap and bow tie, he was there to report on the activities of the country’s 700 supercentenarians. Surprise – these “activities” involved them all dying. Turns out 116 years old might be too old to skydive. And 114-year-old Abner Burton will “join Hamilton next week” – when he’s laid to rest in Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton is buried.
Bennett brings back hipster Jules, who sees things “a little differently,” to comment on the Oscars. He is poetic and ridiculous, going on about childhood memories with pretentiousness on high. “They all ask, who are you wearing?” he says. “What I want to know is, who are you being?” For Best Picture, he’s rooting for Black Panther. “Or as I call it, Equal Panther.”
The cast busts out some new impressions for Family Feud: Oscar Nominees edition. Kenan Thompson’s Steve Harvey hosts veteran celebrities on one side including Cheadle as Spike Lee, noting that he’s been a Knicks season ticket holder for 25 years, so you know he’s not about winning; McKinnon as an ultra-dramatic Glenn Close; Bennett as Sam Elliott; and Strong as Olivia Colman, noting that she’s quite drunk, as she can do whatever she wants since no one knows who she is. Oscar newbies include Melissa Villasenor quickly bringing back Lady Gaga, spreading her trademark optimism by noting that if you poll 100 people you only need one to believe in you to win, a statement Harvey as some objection to; Pete Davidson as a stone-faced Rami Malek; Mooney as Bradley Cooper; and Chris Redd as a stoic Mahershala Ali. This was the typical Family Feud sketch, with the best jokes mostly in the introductions. Strong’s Colman was the highlight.
A commercial parody asks the question: how do you have sex in front of your dog without feeling weird about it. The answer? Pound Puppy, “the furry dog costume big enough for two people to have sex in.” The rest of the sketch is the visual of a room-sized dog toy banging around the room. Good for a quick visual laugh.
SNL returns in two weeks with host John Mulaney and musical guest Thomas Rhett.
Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.
