Saturday Night Live cold open: Tucker Carlson, Wilbur Ross talk shutdown

Tonight, there were all sorts of great possibilities for a Saturday Night Live cold open, just on the basis of headlines alone. We also had a feeling that there was a lot of behind-the-scenes rejiggering given the end of the government shutdown. (That’s the thing about this show — it follows the ebb and flow of the news.)

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Well, one of our worst fears tonight came true — a Fox News parody. Who’s getting anything out of these spoofs at this point? It feels like so much has already been mined from this — we already get the network’s take on Fox News as this point, and none of them have been as funny as the old Fox & Friends spoof that they had a while back. At least this wasn’t Laura Ingraham again … right? Instead, we got Tucker Carlson at the center of the episode with Alex Moffat getting to play the host.

Where things got a little bit better was getting to see Kate McKinnon stop by as Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce who made some really notorious headlines over the past few days. McKinnon has played countless people within the Trump Administration — perhaps the best part of this was getting a chance to hear Ross talk about living in a cocoon.

Then, things got even better — getting a chance to see Steve Martin appear as Roger Stone. We get to see so little of the comedic icon on TV these days that it’s a pleasure to see him at any opportunity and this was hilarious — his version of Stone was wonderful, obnoxious, and over-the-top in every way that we wanted. We’re not sure precisely what Roger Stone actually sounds like and to be honest, we’re not sure that it really even matters. This was just an opportunity to get Martin back on the show and we appreciate every opportunity that we get for that. (Is this where we campaign for him to host again? We know that he’s done it a billion times, but it actually does feel like it’s been a really long time since he has. There’s clearly a comedy gas left in the tank.)

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What did you think about this week’s SNL cold open? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments, and stay tuned for some other news. (Photo: NBC.)