Saturday Night Live cold open: Digital Trump trading cards

With this week being the last Saturday Night Live for the calendar year, of course we had high hopes for the cold open. How in the world could we not? We hoped for something that would be, if nothing else, memorable — it doesn’t have to be about politics, or even about Christmas. There are just some sketches in this spot that go in one ear and out the other.

So what did the NBC show decide to do here? Well, they opted to bring out James Austin Johnson’s impersonation of Donald Trump to talk about the digital “Trump cards” that came out over the past few days. If the show was going to go political, this is something you probably saw a mile away. There were so many parts of the card announcement that were mocked almost immediately when they came online; given the history SNL has of mocking Trump, why wouldn’t they go there?

This was at least a slight shake-up on what we’ve seen from the show and Johnson’s version of Trump. There was no rundown of talking points on the right — at least until we got closer to the end. Also, there was a chance to get appearances in here from Trump Jr. (Mikey Day) and Kimberly Guilfoyle (Cecily Strong, appearing in her final show). Does anyone else feel strange seeing Don Jr. without Alex Moffat as Eric? It just doesn’t feel the same.

Ultimately, this cold open is a fine example of SNL just doing what they think the audience wants for the final show of the year — there were some funny moments throughout, but it was also about as predictable as you would have expected the moment the Trump cards came out.

From here, let’s just see what the rest of Austin Butler’s show brings to the table!

Related – Check out even more news when it comes to Saturday Night Live, including when it could return

What did you think about the big cold open for Saturday Night Live this week?

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