‘Saturday Night Live’: Amy Schumer Hosts, Mothers Say ‘Enough With the Trump Jokes’
By Dave Itzkoff
If you’ve lately felt like the political humor at “Saturday Night Live” has gotten one-sided, you’re not alone. In this weekend’s cold opening sketch — kicking off an episode hosted by Amy Schumer that largely stayed away from topical bits — the mothers of several “S.N.L.” cast members appeared alongside their famous offspring to comically urge them to move on from jokes about President Trump and his administration.
As Aidy Bryant explained at the outset, “Normally we open the show with a political sketch which can sometimes be divisive. But since tomorrow is Mother’s Day, we’re going to focus on the one thing we can all celebrate together: moms.”
Standing next to his mother, Kenan Thompson, a 15-season veteran of the show, told her, “Mom, without your help, I would have never it made to ‘S.N.L.’”
She answered, “Kenan, I can’t imagine this show without you. Like, I actually can’t remember when you weren’t on it.”
Thompson asked her, “You like the show, right, mom?”
She replied, “I do. Except for all the political stuff. We get it.”
Mikey Day reminded his mother about a high school production of “The Crucible” that he had once appeared in. “Oh, right, yeah,” she said. “You know, ‘The Crucible’ is a lot like the witch hunt against President Trump.”
Pulling her off the stage with him, Day said, “O.K., don’t love that, let’s go.”
Colin Jost asked his mother, “Mom, you like the politics on the show, right?”
She replied, “I think Alec Baldwin does a great Trump impression. But why does it have to be so mean? Who writes that stuff?”
Jost, one of the head writers on the show, shrugged it off. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it’s mostly Michael Che.”
Monologue of the Week
“I’m a little sad,” she said:
I’m never going to get a “u up?” text again. Not like they were rolling in, but it was nice to know someone was thinking about me. I once got a “u up?” text and I wrote the guy back, and he texted me: “Sorry, wrong text.” I was like, Me too, I’ll just cancel my Uber, who cares? So I did, I got married, and the way that my now-husband proposed was so worthless. It was such a dumb proposal. It was the morning. I was still asleep. He threw the box at me and said, I got you this. That’s a realistic proposal. I feel like in all the movies and TV shows, it’s always a guy getting down on one knee and the girl’s always shocked. She’s like [screams] “I didn’t even know you liked me!” You’re going to spend your life with this dude, and you didn’t even know if he liked you? The girls I know, I’m from New York — we all got married in our mid, late 30s. So the guy would propose and all my friends are like, Oh now? Now you’re ready? That I probably can’t have kids? Great. Cool. You’re not in love, you’re tired. And I know all your passwords.
‘Weekend Update’ Jokes of the Week
In their sendup of the week’s headlines, the co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che took aim at Mr. Trump and his beleaguered personal lawyer Michael D. Cohen.
Jost: “I’ve got to admit, President Trump had a pretty good week. He helped secure the release of American prisoners from North Korea, and when he greeted them at the airport, he didn’t even say, ‘Wait, I thought they were Americans.’ Trump bragged that him greeting the prisoners was probably the highest ever television ratings for 3 o’clock in the morning. Which is not true — the 3 a.m. ratings record was set on election night, by liberals hoping they were being pranked.”
Che: “According to a report, Michael Cohen was paid $600,000 by AT&T to advise them on their $85 billion merger. AT&T could not be reached for comment because they use AT&T.”
Che: “President Trump announced that he would be withdrawing the US from the Iran nuclear deal. And look, I’m not going to pretend I know anything about the Iran deal. But Trump is. And you know the only part of that deal Trump has read was the signature on bottom that said Barack Obama. That’s all he needed. Trump is undoing so much of Obama’s work that Obama is going to start fading away in pictures like ‘Back to the Future.’”
Che: “Police at Yale University interrogated a black graduate student after a white student reported her for sleeping in the common room. So if you’re black and you go to Yale, stay woke.”
Parody of the Week
The sketch featured Schumer as a sort of hybrid of Offred and Carrie Bradshaw, who thinks to herself, “As I waited for the girls in downtown Gilead, I was feeling like an uptown gal-ead. And I couldn’t help but wonder, are women allowed to do anything anymore?”
When Bryant’s character offers the familiar “Handmaid’s Tale” greeting, “Under his eye,” Schumer responds, “Under his eye? What about under my eye? Look at these bags.”
‘Weekend Update’ Deskside Bit of the Week
Last seen on “Saturday Night Live” lampooning the former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, Melissa McCarthy returned to the show to play Che’s doting, devoted stepmother. While Che struggled to deliver jokes about Rudolph W. Giuliani and Monica Lewinsky, McCarthy bombarded him with embarrassing if affectionate details from his youth (when, according to her, he had “very juicy little buns”).
“In the third grade, Michael read a poem about horseshoe crabs,” she said. “And there was not a dry eye in the room. In the room. All I’m saying is, horseshoe crabs have very limited life spans and I know that because of you.”
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