‘SNL’ Dares To Ask The Question: What If Donald Trump Were Black?

At first, the decision to skip over the usual 24-hour cable news parody in favor of a sketch featuring the Trump brothers seemed a wise digression from the norm for Saturday Night Live‘s cold open. Mikey Day and Alex Moffat’s Donald Jr. and Eric Trump are two of the show’s better recurring characters, and opening in their Trump Tower bedroom, wth Eric comfortably tucked into his race car bed, seemed promising.

The first few minutes had some laughs as Eric, after watching too much news, fears there’s a boogieman in his closet, and also that his brother Don will be indicted. After mocking Eric Trump’s intelligence as they do – Don reads “A Christmas Carol” as a bedtime story and tells Eric to say “stop” if there are any words he doesn’t understand, and he says it at “Twas” – they hear a noise coming from Eric’s closet. Don writes it off the creaking from the cheap steel their dad uses in his buildings, but when he opens the closet door, there’s Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller, indicating to Eric that he’s watching him like a hawk.

Don Jr. leaves as Mueller talks to Eric, introducing himself as “your dad’s friend from work.” They discuss the case against Trump and those around him – with Eric mispronouncing Manafort as “Pillow Fort” and Papadapoulos as “Papa John’s Pizza” – as Mueller makes it clear that his dad is in real trouble.

The sketch has some decent jokes and easy audience laughs. When Eric tells Mueller that people say he’s the worst thing that ever happened to his dad, Mueller responds that getting elected president was, which got a healthy response from the studio crowd. Beyond that, the sketch petered out without leaving much of a mark.

In SNL history, few guests or hosts have been as reliably obvious about reading cue cards as De Niro, who always struggles through sketches on the show like he’s seeing the scripts for the first time. It kills the comic timing of whatever sketch he’s in, and it’s often that way here. Even the laugh on the “getting elected” line, which De Niro waded through as if stuck in quicksand, seeped out with slow realization as opposed to emerging fully-formed, all-at-once from a genuine guttural laugh.

First-time host Jason Momoa came out in hot pink pants to talk about how big an SNL fan he is and make mocking references to his size and strength, welcoming the audience to Saturday Night Huge. Aidy Bryant did a quick bit where she asked him to open a jar while staring into her eyes, and then Leslie Jones, Kenan Thompson, and Chris Redd came out dressed like members of P-Funk, there to suggest that band’s “Aqua Boogie” as the theme song for Momoa’s upcoming Aquaman. Turns out it won’t work, as it’s a song about someone who can’t swim, but the four put there all into a version of the song, which makes for a fun few beats.

Villasenor, Day, and Momoa plays Elves on the Shelf to Bennett’s Santa, reporting back on the activities of the kids they’re charged with watching. Momoa’s elf wants a new kid. Seems he’s been watching the same one for 13 years, and, well, things have changed this year. You see the masturbation jokes coming from a mile away, and sure enough, this Elf on the Shelf has seen too much. Asked by Santa if what the boy is doing is naughty or nice, Momoa can only say that it’s not really either (although really, it would seem to be a bit of both). The elf is especially uncomfortable since an Elf on the Shelf can’t close its eyes, and Momoa sees the boy looking at him while he’s doing it, trying to make him part of it. Checking his naughty and nice list to see what the boy wants for Christmas, Santa remarks, “I see you spelled flashlight wrong.” This was tightly written and progresses well, one of the show’s more solid sketches of late.

A commercial parody for GE Big Boy Appliances notes that these days, the woman is the breadwinner in 50 percent of American households, leaving a lot of men to do the housework. For them, a deep-voiced announcer introduces GE Big Boy Appliances, household appliances made larger, more macho, less efficient and harder-to-use so men feel like they’re doing something. House husband Momoa demonstrates a dishwasher with a 70 lb. steel door – “I’d like to see a woman do that,” he says as he cranks the door shut with a big metal wheel. There’s a six-foot-tall washing machine that runs on gas, and a vacuum cleaner that’s actually a riding mower. All these appliance have an Energy Star rating of F-, since they run on gas. A funny take on toxic masculinity and posturing that manages to throw in the word “torque,” this was followed online in my viewing by an ad for Volkswagen that said, you don’t have to know what torque means to appreciate it. Really drove home what made the fake ad so effective.

Next up, on Dothraki Public Access, is Khal Drogo’s Ghost Dojo. Momoa drops into his Game of Thrones character, as he and Thompson, as a show character, talk to other characters who have been killed off the show. They interview Hodor (Beck Bennett), and between him and Drogo, not much English is spoken. There were lots of Game of Thrones references here, a fake commercial break for products like Dead Horses – “when a horse dies, you wear it” – and the Red Wedding venue, which is now available for actual weddings since they scrubbed out most of the blood. McKinnon appears as King Joffrey, bragging about how he feed off the haters, and then they bring out Bryant as Olenna, the woman who poisoned him, and the pair get into a Maury Povich-style slap fight. There were some decent jokes here but also a lot of dead air and a few blown lines, and by the end, it’s hard to see exactly what sort of parody they were aiming for.

A commercial parody for Them Trumps, from the producers of Empire, asks the question, “What if Donald Trump was black?” Thompson plays Darius Trump, complete with a Trumpian wig, and at first it seems like it’ll be a smooth Empire parody in the Trump world. But it quickly takes a turn, becoming a look at how differently Trump’s fate would be right now if he was black, as Darius Trump is arrested and impeached in short order. A quick funny hit that blends a few sharp jokes with a relevant larger perspective.

Aidy Bryant appeared at the “Weekend Update” desk as 7th grade travel expert Carrie Krum. Bryant always has a blast playing kids, and she doesn’t disappoint here. Asked for a great travel destination, she endorses Columbus, Ohio. “You got cousins, you got aunts, and did you know that uncles can have ponytails too?” Also, her family’s neighbors are BOYS! The conceit here is that the 7th grader has seen little, and only thinks of travel locations in terms of where she’s been. Bryant has fun with this and so do we, and she delights in the simple childhood hilarities like finding her aunt’s bra on a couch, or being able to see her cousin’s butt after he soaks in the hot tub.

In an unusual move, Michael Che shifted from the anchor seat for a desk piece in favor of bidets, after a company marketing them had their ads banned from the subway by the MTA. This was short and somewhat scattered, but had some solid laughs as Che sung the praises of bidets, which he said have changed his life since he got one. This was purely silly – “Gone are the days of me penguin-walking to the sink with my pants around my ankles just wet some tissue like a fool” – and Che is at his best when he is given space to riff. Comparing a bidet to using baby wipes, he says, “Using baby wipes is like eating chicken wings with a fork and a knife. But my bidet, that’s like putting a whole drumstick in your mouth and pulling out a clean bone.” As for why the subway should run the ads, he notes, “What better metaphor for a bidet than a whooshing train zipping through a dirty tunnel.”

Day plays Ebenezer Scrooge the morning after the events of “A Christmas Carol.” He’s a changed man, throwing open his window and yelling “Merry Christmas” to all, but is then surprised by an unexpected fourth ghost, played by Momoa. Scrooge thought he was done with ghosts after those of Christmas Past, Present and Future, but Momoa has a surprise, and goes into a seductive dance. Scrooge doesn’t understand what lesson he’s supposed to learn from this one, as Momoa starts to strip down. Scrooge is mystified, but the ghost makes it sound like the lesson should be obvious from his dance. Soon, the Cratchit family enter, and after one last dance, this time with Momoa in sparkly hot pants, Tiny Tim (Kate McKinnon) can suddenly walk. This sketch had no point, but was a fun excuse to let Momoa get loose.

TBS shows a 1985 campus comedy called “Day of the Dorks,” and Day plays a typical frat boy bully, ranting to his frat brothers about how they’re being beaten by a bunch of dorks in the campus Olympics. Momoa is Beef, who wears a sleeveless frat vest and seems incapable of saying much more than, “I hate dorks!” or “Kill the dorks!” As Day unveils convoluted 80s-movie-style schemes to address their conundrum, Beef cuts right to the chase, offering violence and death as the answer with guttural utterances before destroying pieces of his own frat’s furniture. I wish I could lay out what happened next, but nothing really did. Beef was sent outside and made threatening motions as Day unveiled his undercover dork in Kyle Mooney, but then the sketch just petered out.

A few weeks back, I published an essay here on Decider suggesting that SNL re-focus on creating recurring characters. The return of Gemma is a prime case of be careful what you wish for. Cecily Strong’s Gemma is a strange recurring character in that she’s not the main focus of her sketches. Gemma, a clueless and spoiled English woman, is merely a device for that week’s host to play off, as the horny macho boyfriend in her sketches is really the star. This Gemma sketch follows the template, as Gemma and Momoa loudly intrude on two other couples on a sleigh ride and Momoa talks about how physically excited Gemma’s every action makes him. A case of diminishing returns, Gemma’s ready for the shelf.

In a pre-filmed sketch, Bennett plays the boyfriend of Melissa Villasenor, preparing to meet her parents, played by Momoa and Heidi Gardner, for the first time. While he seems normal and a bit nervous before they arrive, once they do, he disappears, and starts taunting them in a high-pitched voice, “Bet you can’t find me.” After a few moments of confusion, Momoa plays into his premise and takes up the challenge, and begins to search this house, discovering booby traps Bennett has set up along the way and destroying the house in his effort to find him. In the end, they find Bennett greased up and half naked, stuck behind an entertainment center, saying he just wanted to impress her parents. Momoa is taken in, while Gardner maintains a look of vague disgust and confusion, one that might be matched by the viewers.

Rudolph’s Big Night takes place on Christmas Eve as the reindeer prepare to fly and Rudolph, played by Pete Davidson, is the subject of ridicule for not being able to until Santa, played by Momoa, tells them that the weather is too overcast to fly and Christmas is cancelled. Rudolph gets tagged in and saves Christmas, but then turns cold, as stalks the other reindeers in intimidating fashion as revenge for their insults and abuse. This had a strong premise and a solid performance from Davidson, but didn’t quite hit the way it was intended. Perhaps this was too harsh for the studio audience, or maybe tales of nerds getting revenge by being awful don’t hit the collective funny bone the way they used to.

SNL returns next week for the final episode of 2018 with host Matt Damon and musical guests Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson.

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.

Watch the Jason Momoa/Mumford & Sons episode of SNL on Hulu