Saturday Night Live: Tim Kaine surprises in game show sketch

Saturday Night Live season 50
Photo: NBC

This weekend marked John Mulaney’s big return on Saturday Night Live — but who in the world expected Tim Kaine?

This was a really smart bit of misdirection on the part of Lorne Michaels and the producers. After all, there were reports out there that Kamala Harris would appear, and that was a great smokescreen to hide another politician turning up. Also, the entire point of the game-show sketch was how nobody remembers Tim Kaine, despite him being a Vice Presidential candidate just eight years ago. Also, he is still a Senator from Virginia!

The real MVP here is Kaine, who was so great at making fun of himself. He recognized where he stands in history at this point, and he didn’t have too much of an ego to refuse to come out for this. There were jokes made about his similarity to Tim Walz, and not just that the two have the same first name. Of course, we also recognize that there was value in Kaine doing this — it does get him into the public eye in a way that he has not been in years.

Also, this cameo was not the only great part of the game show, as there was also a great riff in here on Margaret Atwood. Sarah Sherman did a fantastic job in a limited amount of screen time.

After we saw Kaine, there was admittedly a small part of us that was eager to see if there were going to be a lot of other random politicians who showed up after the fact. Yet, we recognize that having a current Vice President turned Presidential candidate and also a one-time VP candidate was a lot.

Even if the rest of the episode flops, we got two fantastic sketches and in the end, who saw that coming? Kaine’s appearance may actually be the best politician cameo ever.

Related Be sure to see more news on Saturday Night Live now, including Kamala Harris showing up in the cold open

What did you think about Tim Kaine’s fantastic cameo on Saturday Night Live this weekend?

Share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, remember to also come back for some other updates.

Love TV? Be sure to like Matt & Jess on Facebook for more updates!