The new season of Saturday Night Live got off to a great start with the debut of Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump and the very welcome return of Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton. It must have been difficult to decide which moments to choose from the world-class trainwreck of a debate on Monday, but their first joke was lifted from Gene Wilder by way of Twitter’s animated GIF-makers:
For the debate itself, the SNL writing room didn’t have to search farther than, well, the debate itself. From Trump’s sniffing to Clinton’s increasingly incredulous reactions at Trump’s nationally televised meltdown (Rosie O’Donnell?), it’s all pretty faithfully recreated. They didn’t even have to improve on Clinton’s ridiculous “Trumped-up trickle-down” catchphrase, presumably written by the same wag who tried to make “Dangerous Donald” a thing. Baldwin’s Trump is spot-on, and McKinnon somehow manages to raise her eyebrows so high they’re practically levitating. Top marks to everyone involved for somehow turning a national disgrace into something worth laughing about.
