The 45th season of Saturday Night Live, which premiered last night (Sept. 28), will not be pulling its punches.
That’s if a mock CNN “Impeachment Town Hall” skit is any indication. The 10-minute skit, in which cast members Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman made their debuts, SNL sent up both the town hall format, in all its shambling aimlessness, and the candidates themselves.
While some Democratic hopefuls received only the gentlest of ribbings, for others, the show proved as eviscerating as ever.
- On New Jersey senator Cory Booker: “We’re limiting the amount of time you can speak based on how well you’re doing in the polls. Cory, you get five words.”
- On South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg: “Am I pronouncing that correctly?”
- On Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke: “The guy who tragically misread our enthusiasm for him.”
- Marianne Williamson, via astral projection from outer space: “This November, vote for magic.”
- Tech entrepreneur Andy Yang: “I’m literally giving free money to people, and I’m still in sixth place.”
As for the “actual candidates” (as the show put it), Woody Harrelson’s took a spin as Joe Biden sporting luminous dental veneers. (“He went to the dentist and said, ‘Give me the high beams'”)
- Vice-president Joe Biden: “I’m like plastic straws. I’ve been around forever, I’ve always worked, but now you’re mad at me? Drink up, America.”
- California senator Kamala Harris: “America’s…fun aunt. I call that a funt—the kind of funt that will give you weed, but then arrest you for having weed.”
- Vermont senator Bernie Sanders: “I’m so excited to be back, and to ruin things a second time.”
- California senator Elizabeth Warren: “I have the energy of a mother of five boys who all play a different sport.”