THE NEW YORK TIMES: On the ‘SNL’ season premiere, US President Donald Trump warns ‘daddy’s watching’

How will the renewed scrutiny of late-night comedy affect Saturday Night Live, its approach to political satire and its lampooning of the Trump administration? Judging from the 51st season premiere of SNL, the answer so far is: not much.

SNL began its new season this weekend in customary fashion, with a sketch that featured cast member James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as US President Donald Trump.

This time, he was interrupting a speech by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to warn that he was “keeping my eye on ‘SNL,’ making sure they don’t do anything too mean about me,” and to remind them: “Daddy’s watching.”

Should you need a refresher, a few things happened during the SNL offseason: The show parted ways with five of its cast members, including longtime performers like Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim, and it hired five new featured players, among them comedian Kam Patterson and Ben Marshall, a creator and star of its Please Don’t Destroy videos.

Bad Bunny, the season premiere host, was announced as the Super Bowl LX halftime show headliner, drawing the ire of government officials including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said that “ICE enforcement” would attend the Super Bowl and would be “all over” the event, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

And — oh yes — the category of late-night TV comedy became unexpectedly volatile: In July, CBS announced that “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” would go off the air next May, citing economic factors. And The Walt Disney Co. pulled the ABC late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for a few broadcasts in September, amid controversy over remarks that Kimmel made on the show about the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist.

SNL addressed some of these controversies in its opening sketch, in which Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost played Hegseth, speaking to U.S. military officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Northern Virginia. (“Thanks to failed liberal policies, our Army has never been gayer,” Jost said in his speech. “And yet, it’s also never been fatter. Make that make sense.”)

Jost’s lecture was soon overtaken by Johnson, who declared that SNL had “better be careful, because I know late-night TV like the back of my hand.” As he said this, Johnson turned over his hand to show what looked like a bruise noticeably disguised by makeup.

“Not looking great right now,” he said, quickly clasping that hand with the other. “Oops! Don’t look at that. Gonna cover this up for the rest of my life.” Johnson also warned that SNL would have to be on its “best behavior” or else it would have to answer to his “attack dog,” Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. (Mikey Day played Carr in a brief appearance, boogieing onto the stage to Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.”)

As its 51st season got underway, Johnson said that SNL should have “called it at 50, right?”

“It’s so sad to see something get old and confused and yet still demand your constant attention,” he said. “Oh well.”

Opening Monologue of the Week

Bad Bunny (who was also the musical guest of the SNL season finale in May) used his own opening monologue to comment on his recent three-month residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the announcement that he would be performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. “I’m very happy and I think everyone is happy about it,” he said. “Even Fox News.” He then played a montage of Fox News hosts whose words had been edited together to say, “Bad Bunny is my favorite musician and he should be the next president.”

Speaking to the audience in Spanish at one point, Bad Bunny said in part that his Super Bowl gig was exciting “to all the Latinos and Latinas in the whole world” and marked a milestone that no one could take away or erase.

“And if you didn’t understand what I just said,” he added, “you have four months to learn.”

Celebrity cameos of the week

In its season premiere, SNL kept alive another of its proud traditions: celebrity guests playing surprise roles in its sketches. There was Jon Hamm, playing himself (or was it his alter ego, Juan Jamón?) during Bad Bunny’s opening monologue, and returning for the final sketch of the night; Benicio Del Toro, appearing in a sketch about the origins of the Spanish language in the year 900; and singers Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, who provide the singing voices of the fictional girl group Huntr/x, in a sketch about the hit animated musical film “KPop Demon Hunters.”

Weekend update jokes of the week

Over at the Weekend Update desk, Jost and co-anchor Michael Che continued to riff on the government shutdown.

Jost began:

This week the government finally represented the people when it just completely shut down. Honestly, didn’t it feel like the government kind of needed a break, just so we could all catch our breath? Can you believe we’re only nine months into this presidency? That means we still have three months and seven years remaining. I already tried fighting. I’m tired. I went to so many protests this summer. But honestly, it was worth it, because we finally got them to change the Cracker Barrel logo back to the original, featuring my actual grandpa. And I know it’s scary for a lot of people right now, but I’m trying to stay positive and I’m trying to remember the words of a great man: (He played video of Trump saying, “Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen.”)

Che continued:

The last time the U.S. government shut down was during President Trump’s first administration in 2018. Which was so long ago, we looked like this: [He showed an image of “Stranger Things” actors Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin sitting at the Weekend Update desk.] President Trump claimed that one of the reasons the government shut down is because Democrats want “transgender for everybody.” Which is obviously not true. But at the same time, I wouldn’t say no to my own set of these. (He showed an image of himself with exaggerated breast implants.)

Weekend update desk segment of the week

Making his debut as an SNL cast member, Patterson used his spot at the Weekend Update desk to ask if he could say the n-word. “You want to say the n-word?” Jost asked him. Patterson responded, “You mean the word I say in my act 150 times before my second joke? Yes.” Informed that saying the word on SNL could incur a $500,000 fine, Patterson pushed on nonetheless. “Colin, I’m a stand-up comedian from Florida,” he said. “Saying that word is what I do. Come on, bruh. This is exactly what Jimmy Kimmel fought for.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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