Saturday Night Live cold open: Columbia protests

Given that tonight’s Saturday Night Live was the first episode in weeks, it did lead to more questions as to a possible cold open. What would the writers choose?

Well, we’ll be honest and say that a spoof of the Trump trial in New York was so far and away the favorite, and it was hard for anything else to come close. After all, you have James Austin Johnson raring to go in moments like this!

Yet, here is where the show surprised us: Instead of doing a predictable Trump trial bit, they aired a New York talk-show spoof about recent protests at Columbia and a number of other universities. This is a difficult line to tow since this is such a polarizing subject. Yet, the show find a way to do it courtesy of Kenan Thompson’s character, a guy who had no problem with protests … as long as his kid wasn’t doing it. Was there a singular person he was mocking here? That’s hard to say, but he cared more about his daughter Alexis attending class since he was paying for it.

Could the show have gone harder with the satire? Absolutely, but there were at least a few good one-liners in here, including Thompson’s character listing off all of the various jobs he performed in order to ensure he could pay for tuition.

The weirdest part? The sketch just … ended. There was no big reveal or reason to crack up, and nor was there any cameo. (That part of it wasn’t a shock, given that this is about as controversial a subject as the show could have taken on — especially when there was such low-hanging fruit in front of them.)

Related – Check out some of the hosts for the remainder of Saturday Night Live this season!

What did you think about this particular Saturday Night Live cold open?

Did it live up to the hype in your mind? Go ahead and share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, remember to come back — there are a lot of other updates coming up soon.