For a number of years, late-night linchpin Saturday Night Live has seen its relevance and its ratings progressively shrink. The show that launched so many legendary careers found itself suddenly devoid of any name talent and stuck firmly under the thumb of political correctness. It’s hard to believe a show that gave the world the likes of Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, and Eddie Murphy would ever bow to the woke mob, but such was SNL from 2016 on.
However, what most likely destroyed the show’s ratings was its insistence on being the late-night wing of the Democrat party. Former President and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump effectively broke the show when he was elected president in 2016. A program that tapped Trump to host a 2015 lovefest suddenly couldn’t stand the president-elect.
After four years of weekly skits lampooning Trump and very often going after conservatives in general, the shtick wore thin, and ratings were so low many speculated the show might finally be canceled. Rock bottom for the show may have actually been 2019. Trump may have broken SNLs’ minds, but hiring and firing a popular comedy writer in a matter of days may have broken the program’s sense of humor.
In 2019, SNL hired popular and controversial comedian Shane Gillis to inject some actual comedy back into the show. However, as social media trolls are prone to do, folks pointed out that Gillis had made some jokes on a podcast that the left would find offensive, and Gillis was fired days later. The jokes, by any other era’s standards, were tame, but SNL quickly took a dive and canned Gillis.
The show, in a shocking turnaround, actually tabbed Gillis as the host two weeks ago. Gillis has blown up since being axed by SNL, and it was a very satisfying moment for conservatives to see a free-speech comedian like Gillis get his redemption. This past SNL actually took things to the next level in their “cold open.”
For more than three years, SNL hammered Trump, but Saturday night, the cold open hilariously turned the table on Joe Biden. The program played off of the White House narrative that Biden is sharp and focused behind closed doors. Obviously, he isn’t, but SNL had hilarious (for a change) comedians playing Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden and drove the punch line home with authority.
As an example of comedic hyperbole, Mediate described one sequence as“Karine Jean-Pierre (played by Ego Nwodim) then stopped by to praise Biden as “the most vigorous man I’ve ever known. Behind closed doors, he’s a whirlwind,” SNL’s Jean-Pierre said — before running down a Biden daily schedule which included a Soulcycle class and a push-up contest with the Joint Chiefs.”
Anyone who has followed the Biden Administration can see KJP making such absurd assertions despite the apparent evidence to the contrary. The fact that SNL is somewhat trying to be non-partisan is a step in the right direction. Watching Joe Biden walk and talk isn’t the only funny thing on television, and perhaps Saturday Night Live is positioning itself for a Trump Administration where they won’t spend all of their time on cheap political jokes. The entire bit can be seen below.
Featured image screen grab from embedded video
