Last night ‘SNL’ reminded everyone in America, no matter where you stand in the upcoming Presidential Election, we can laugh about it. And the performances of recent Emmy-winner Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton and American showbiz treasure Alec Baldwin delivered on a promoted opening sketch spoofing the highs and lows of this past week’s real debate between the candidates. It’s easily one of the funniest sketches on this NBC comedy institution in years.
McKinnon playing this over-zealous exaggeration of Clinton just made it all fun. It was just such a solid percussive beat that McKinnon set to bounce the comedy ball back and forth with Baldwin. The way she worked in the shoulder-shimmy shake was just a cherry on top of a cake.
The announcement last week to make Baldwin who has been one of the most effective guest host in SNL’s 42 seasons may have taken some casual fans of the show by surprise, but if you got a grasp of his range you could see this being a slam dunk before it aired. The writing for his Trump was spot-on with his delivery and aggressive mannerisms. Baldwin deserves recognition as one of the all-time SNL greats for performances like this. It makes it exciting to see where else they’ll go with future satires in the coming weeks of the campaign season.
Kudos to the makeup and hair team at SNL as well, Baldwin looked like a perfect clone of the Donald. McKInnon didn’t need to be done up, as she just takes any character for a full ride.
