This week’s “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live was chock-full of election material ahead of Election Day, featuring hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che trading jokes as well as an appearance by Heidi Gardner parodying country star Reba McEntire as a celebrity evading a political endorsement.
Jost kicked things off with a jab: “Next week the American people will decide if the next president will be Kamala Harris or if everyone on SNL will get audited.”
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Then, the segue transitioned to presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s various — for lack of a better word — interesting choices at last-minute campaign rallies and media appearances, including parading around with his name on a garbage truck (and missing opening its door handle, almost falling), piling on the fake tanner and appearing to mime giving a blowjob to a microphone stand. At this point, Che addressed Trump’s much-discussed Madison Square Garden rally.
“Speakers hurled insults at minority groups, used Nazi rhetoric and suggested that Democrats should be slaughtered, but this lady’s [referring to a photo of Harris] got a weird laugh, so I still can’t decide,” Che quipped.
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“A comedian at Trump’s rally referred to Puerto Rico as a ‘floating island of garbage,’ and I take offense to that as someone who proudly grew up on an actual island of garbage,” Jost added, referencing Staten Island.
The segment then introduced SNL heavyhitter Gardner in a full McEntire getup. When asked by Jost who she’s voting for, she said, “Call me Shawn Mendes ’cause I’m still figuring it out,” referencing the singer-songwriter’s recent comments about speculation surrounding his sexuality.
As the bit continued, Gardner increased her wildly gesticulation and rising-and-bobbing out of her chair. “We were Methodist-atheist. Mama was a Republican and daddy was Pennywise — I’m a red-head ain’t I?” she began, adding, “Mama worked 59 jobs just to keep us in school and daddy only had the one, eating kids. My mama was only 75 pounds and 67 of them was breasts.”
Gardner’s chaotic cosplay ended with her voting “online” by inputting her Social Security number, credit card information and an image of “your red and curlies,” as she pantomimed taking a nude photo.
In closing out “Weekend Update,” Marcello Hernandez and Jane Wickline stole the show, playing a “couple you cannot believe are together.” Hernandez played a brash, himbo type in Grant, while Wickline portrayed a quiet, bookish Barnard student getting her master’s degree in “18th century graveyards.” With spot-on comedic timing on both players’ parts, Hernandez’s boisterous interruptions paired well with Wickline’s soft-spoken poetry.