Out of Trump’s pocket, it’s Saturday night!
November 12, 2015
The sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” has been a cornerstone in American culture for over 40 years providing pop culture insight, clever humor, and political commentary. But what happens when a politician tries to spin that commentary in their direction?
You get a disaster. Sat. Nov. 7, billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hosted Saturday Night Live in what turned into a trainwreck of a night.
Critic for avclub.com Dennis Perkins said “In the end, the episode was as inoffensive as the writers and Trump’s advisors could make it—without being funny. Whatever their political views, viewers looking for a good episode of SNL didn’t get one. ”
SNL regularly invites politicians and candidates to the show to make fun of themselves and make cameos like Hillary Clinton did in this season’s premiere, but it is highly unusual for a presidential candidate to take the reigns and host the show.
The issue with Trump’s guest spot was the transparency of his motives; attract the youth through popular media. He obviously threw money at the show without putting in any actual effort. It felt as if everyone involved from the writers to the cast to the audience was being kept hostage.
Nowhere was this more obvious than in a sketch where it is 2018 and Trump is president. America is now a utopia and all of his seemingly outlandish ideas were successful. Is there a punchline here? No. This is the entire sketch.
Perkins said about this sketch, “Trump’s showpiece sketch…was excruciating to watch, as the cast waited uncomfortably for Trump…grew more and more distastefully like something Trump’s speechwriters came up with.”
The only way Trump worked was minimally (for a few seconds at most) in two pre-recorded sketches: a parody of a parody of Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and one of the few comedic showcases of the night starring cast member Beck Bennett as an insecure father/aspiring musician.
The only criticism of the host came from guest Larry David who played Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in the cold open and from Weekend Update- one of the only segments in the show controlled by the show’s cast and writers.
New York Times critic James Poniewozik said it best about the episode, “In this bargain, Donald Trump won. And just like he’d warned us, it was boring.”