Saturday Night Live devoted its cold opening last night to the Vice Presidential Debate, and as you’d guess, the sketch ended up being arguably the most talked about segment of the show. It’s already been watched almost a million times on YouTube, and the numbers for smaller clips on X are even higher. Fan response has also been very positive, as it was last week, but even with all those accolades, it’s hard to look at what SNL is doing with election coverage this year and not see an inherent risk.
Let’s run down what looks to be the major SNL players so far this season in election coverage. We have Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, Bowen Yang as JD Vance, Dana Carvey as Joe Biden and Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff. The impressions have all been almost universally praised, but four of those six people doing them aren’t current SNL cast members, which is a big risk for the long-term trajectory of the show.
SNL is, of course, no stranger to bringing in people for specific political impressions. Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump impression was maybe the most discussed in the history of the show, and Tina Fey continued to play Sarah Palin long after the rest of her duties on the show were done. Getting additional help is definitely not a problem, but this year is particularly notable since there are so many non-cast member impressions happening at the same time.
On the one hand, it’s easy to see why Lorne Michaels would go in that direction. The goal is to make people laugh, and these impressions are all nailing it. In addition, having a high profile celebrity on the show every week definitely increases the number of eyeballs and makes it a little more culturally relevant. Plus, this year is the famed 50th season of the show, and everyone involved has been very open about their desire to make it special by bringing back former cast members and introducing fun celebrity appearances.
On the other hand, however, the political sketches are typically among the most viewed of the entire season, and they can be a great way to get exposure for the actual cast members. Beloved Not Ready For Prime Time Players like Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman all at least partially made their reputations off dynamite political impressions, and there’s a risk in not giving more of that exposure to the next generation of talent. You always need to be building for the future, and while Bowen Yang and James Austin Johnson are able to do that, the other impressions aren’t accomplishing anything toward tomorrow.
You can check out last night’s VP Debate sketch below…
I mean, it’s good. Everything about what they’re doing right now is working. So, I want to make it clear I’m not complaining. I love seeing all these celebrities on SNL, but there is a limited amount of screentime on the show each week. Every minute that goes to a returning celebrity is a minute that doesn’t go to a current cast member. That’s OK in small doses, especially during a milestone year like Season 50, but all involved need to work toward finding a balance because all the increased eyeballs this season could also be a great way to build new stars.