Given the kind of week, month and year it's been, it might be considered something of a Christmas present that “Saturday Night Live” has largely eschewed topical comedy in its final new episode of 2023. Or perhaps it's an unusual choice for an episode hosted by Kate McKinnon, who impersonated dozens of politicians and celebrities during her time on “SNL” but didn't impersonate them again this week.
Whether it's naughty or nice, this “SNL” show (which also featured musical guest Billie Eilish) began with a fake awards show: What other than the Christmas Awards, which honor embarrassing and unpleasant events that occur when families get together for the holidays.
Hosted by “two people from the E! Network You've Never Heard Of” (actually Heidi Gardner and Bowen Yang), the show quickly handed out a trophy in the “Most Disappointing Gift to a 10-Year-Old Boy” category. It was won by Gam-Gam (Chloe Fineman), who explained: “My grandson told me he wanted a Nintendo Switch. So I knew I had to go out and buy him Dockers pleated khakis with a sewn-in belt. A grandmother just knows.”
Other categories included Most Unwelcome Uninvited Guest, Unevenly Lit Tree and Best Performance. There is no justice if the final award wasn't won by Chloe Troast for a particularly confident rendition of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” full of incorrect texts.
Opening monologue of the week
It's been about a year and a half since audiences watched McKinnon, a cast member for a decade, board an alien spaceship and wave goodbye to “SNL.” At the time, she said, “I've always felt kind of like an alien on this planet anyway.”
Returning for the first time as host of the show where she once worked, McKinnon said the experience was otherworldly in its own way.
“I don’t really like speaking in my own voice,” she said. “That's kind of why I got involved with this racket in the first place.” Since leaving the show, McKinnon said, she has “tried to build a human persona – and so far I have a hat, it's a good hat , it’s a strong hat.”
When appearing in other hosts' monologues, McKinnon said, “I usually played the role of 'freak next to a hot person.'” With those words, she shared images of herself doing just that with previous “SNL” hosts like Benedict Cumberbatch did. Martin Freeman, Jim Parsons and Josh Hutcherson.
McKinnon added that she generally felt more comfortable wearing strange costumes, except for when she attended her prom. She shared a photo of herself from the event and described it as: “The feeling when your date shows up in a Ren Faire dress and is gay and I am.”
McKinnon also showed off the old ID photo she took on her first day at the fair and greeted fellow “SNL” alums Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig. Her old colleagues said they spent a lot of time reading her Wikipedia pages, which supposedly said Wiig had won 12 Grammy Awards and was dating Travis Kelce, and Rudolph had won 29 Grammys and was dating Jay-Z married.
“Have you ever checked the name at the top of the page?” McKinnon asked her.
“I don’t think so,” Wiig replied.
Super Troops of the Week
In 1976, “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels famously offered the Beatles the whopping sum of $3,000 if they would reunite on his program, and his efforts were unsuccessful. Now, 47 years later, would he get another pop supergroup – Swedish quartet Abba – to reunite on his show? No, he wouldn't. But McKinnon, Wiig, Rudolph and Yang did their best to imitate Abba (and not laugh at each other) in this skit, which was presented as a commercial for a (fake) Abba Christmas album. If you've ever found yourself singing along to “Dancing Queen” a little too loudly, you'll appreciate this loving satire of the band's Scandinavian accents and their songs about underage protagonists. Mamma Mia!
Holiday Counterprogramming of the Week
If you came to this week's show expecting skits about Christmas, you probably had plenty to choose from, including a segment on a television news program about killer whales attacking elves at the North Pole; and in another, McKinnon played a mother who is particularly insecure about the gifts she has been given for her family.
And if you were hoping for something completely random and completely unrelated to the holidays, there's this music video in which McKinnon sings – well, a pasture that grows a hygiene product you wouldn't expect that it is grown somewhere. (If you got up early Sunday morning wondering why the term “tampon farm” was trending on your favorite social media, now you know.)
Weekend Update Jokes of the Week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che discussed the results of a defamation trial against Rudy Giuliani and President Biden's efforts to promote the Affordable Care Act.
Jost began:
After Rudy Giuliani was found guilty of defamation charges against two Georgia election officials, he was ordered yesterday to pay the hilarious sum of $148 million. You might as well make a billion out of it because there's no way he can pay it. At this point, they're just calling Giuliani the 9/11 mayor because that's all that's left in his bank account. Giuliani, surprisingly seen here in better times, said during the trial that it was a coincidence that he had repeatedly attacked the plaintiffs on social media, with the judge noting: “A lot of accidents happen.” Giuliani said: “Oh, you could smell that?”
Che:
Yesterday, President Biden released a new video featuring Barack Obama reminding people that Obamacare is still available. But polls show people are desperate to know whether Obama is still available.