SNL Does Trump-Biden Debate

A parody of a joke.

October 4, 2020

Comments

Alec Baldwin as back in his recurring role as President Donald Trump and Jim Carey has been brought on to play Joe Biden this season. They’re good but it’s really hard to parody the shit show that was this past week’s debate.

While I haven’t been a regular SNL watcher for years, they’ve always shined during election season.

Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford and Dan Aykroyd as Jimmy Carter kicked it all off back in 1976:

Here’s Dana Carvey as George HW Bush and Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis in 1988 (with Tom Hanks as Tom Brokaw):

Here are Darrell Hammond as Al Gore and Will Farrell as George W. Bush in 2000:

7 responses to “SNL Does Trump-Biden Debate”

gVOR08

October 4, 2020 at 11:40 am

A WAPO opinion writer says the Tuesday debate was the best debate she’s ever seen. She’s right. It may have been a debacle in terms of debate norms and some desire for the President to look “presidential”. But it was honest. Instead of two animatronics standing there trading canned talking points we got a glimpse of who these two men really are. One the drunk at the end of the bar and one calm and dealing with a ridiculous situation as best he could. I think the media are upset about the debate mostly because it’s impossible to bothsides it.

Most of us at OTB have known since the 2016 primaries what Trump is, except for finding out he’s worse. But, as is often remarked, normal people pay little attention to politics. Journalistic norms have pushed the media to normalizing him. The wise, patriotic, insider, old men who we hoped might constrain him saw what he is but have been chewed up, spit out, and then mostly kept quiet. The investigations never cleared him, but also never generated a slam dunk. As we should have learned by now from Dr. T, 95% of the people who were going to vote for Trump still are because he has an R after his name. They’ve learned nothing in the last fifty years and they’re not about to now.

But politics happens at the margin. There are some real undecideds and a few marginal Rs who may have learned something Tuesday. WSJ/NBC have a post debate poll out this morning. (No link ‘cause it’s a pain on the iPad, Google it, CNBC as WSJ is paywalled.) They show Biden’s lead moving from 8% to 14%!! I wait hopefully for post Trump infection polls.

6
Lounsbury

October 4, 2020 at 3:35 pm

@gVOR08: There is quite something to be said for this. Two men as they really are. Not the advertisement live-repeats you normally do.
Gustopher

October 4, 2020 at 6:02 pm

Did Biden get angry towards the end? Or is that part of the portrayal just made up?

Biden is not normally an angry man. Even “will you shut up?” was a softer “will you shut up, man?” Jim Carrey’s portrayal just felt off.

I gave up about 20 minutes in, figuring I would catch whatever nightlights there were. Was there something there?

The finger guns on entering were Classic Biden, however, even if Biden never did it… it speaks to the Joe Biden Archetype.
An Interested Party

October 4, 2020 at 7:53 pm

Did Biden get angry towards the end? Or is that part of the portrayal just made up?

Biden is not normally an angry man. Even “will you shut up?” was a softer “will you shut up, man?” Jim Carrey’s portrayal just felt off.

Maybe they just wanted Biden to be the vessel expressing anger for the rest of us…a remote to shut the Orange up…that would be so great…

2
Paine

October 4, 2020 at 7:53 pm

I think JB would be well-served to play off Carrey’s impersonation of himself a bit. Maybe do the finger gun bit from time to time. Might knock a few years off of his perceived age.

1
Jax

October 4, 2020 at 9:37 pm

@An Interested Party: That was CLASSIC, my daughter and I were rolling at the blessed Trumplessness!!!

1
Jax

October 4, 2020 at 9:39 pm

@Paine: Yeah, but then the NRA folks would be like “EHRMAGERD, HE USED FINGER GUNS, WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!”

I mean, I’d laugh my ass off, but you can pretty much tell right away what those snowflake gun boys are gonna get pissed about.

1