Month: November 2020

Kate McKinnon’s Rudy Giuliani has been a mainstay on Saturday Night Live in the Donald Trump era, as the president’s personal lawyer has been a fixture of news cycles for years. But Saturday’s bizarre press conference in Philadelphia just before Trump all but officially lost the White House simply had to be addressed on the Dave Chappelle-hosted show, and McKinnon delivered on Weekend Update.

“Did you see my press conference today? It was at the Four Seasons,” McKinnon said. “Fancy.”

The turnaround on these jokes was impressive: the press conference happened on Saturday morning, just hours before SNL taped in the wake of Biden’s win officially being declared by networks. But given the truly spectacular bounty of humor from that event at a landscaping company next to a porn shop, and how it served to end election season and Trump’s place in it, McKinnon appearing as Giuliani served as a celebration of just how weird so much of Trump’s presidency has been over the years.

“I’m glad I made it to the show on time. First I went to 30 Rocks, it’s a granite quarry in New Rochelle,” McKinnon, who curiously played Rudy wearing what appeared to be a hospital ID band on a wrist.

The Four Seasons jokes were just the start of the weird way McKinnon played the former New York City mayor. Eyes bulging, fingertips spread out at weird angles, Rudy said he would throw out ballots received from Mars, explaining just how to figure out they were coming from another planet. There’s also a lot of physical comedy in the sketch, as McKinnon oftentimes appears to try making only Weekend Update host Colin Jost uncomfortable and giggly by getting very close to him and making various exasperated sighs and sounds, adding to the character’s weirdness.

Saturday Night Live decided to bring in a ringer for Season 46 of its show, opting not to use a member of its cast to play Joe Biden but to let movie star Jim Carrey play the Democratic presidential candidate. For five straight weeks, Carrey played a Biden that alternated between barely keeping his rage in check and often morphing into other characters and people altogether. But on Saturday, with the real Biden declared president-elect by the national news media, he did something many have long desired to do: called Donald Trump a loser.

SNL’s cold open on Saturday featured all the characters viewers have come to expect in recent weeks. Carrey played a victorious Biden, who graciously mimicked the real Biden and his call for unity and bringing America together. He also broke out an Ace Ventura voice to call Donald Trump a “loser,” but that came much later on.

“We did it. Can you believe it?” Carrey’s Biden asked to start his speech. “I honestly kinda can’t. It’s been so long since something good happened.”

Maya Rudolph played Kamala Harris, the former of which was likely thrilled to have four more years of guest spots on the show she once shined on weekly. And Alec Baldwin played a morose Trump who went to a piano to not play Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, but a mournful version of the Village People’s “Macho Man”. It was a “goodbye” of sorts from Baldwin’s Trump, whose campaign had made the same group’s “YMCA” a mainstay at Trump rallies despite the many ways the song was an odd bedfellow to the Trump campaign.

The sketch started with a riff about Wolf Blitzer and John King on CNN, which finally called the election for Biden after days of a nation anxiously watching cable news. There were a lot of jokes about the week that was that clearly came together at the last minute, as Biden’s victory was officially called just hours before the sketches were recorded in front of a live studio audience in NBC’s Studio 8H. But on an historic day in America, many turned to SNL to sum up the end of one of the oddest elections in American history. It likely won’t be the last we see of anyone in the sketch, but it certainly seemed to be a fitting end to five straight weeks of new SNL cold opens.

Dave Chappelle hosted SNL in 2016 on the Saturday after Donald Trump’s stunning election victory. Four years later, Chappelle is back on a milestone day, since Joe Biden’s presidential victory (and Trump’s transformation into a one-term president) was called on Saturday morning. Like the week-long wait for election results, a college football game in OT led to a delayed broadcast, but the eventual arrival of Chappelle in action smoothed some over frayed U.S. nerves.

As Chappelle put things after taking the stage, it’s a “pretty incredible day.”

However, the suit-and-sneakers clad comedian didn’t hold back from the biting humor for which he’s known. Nor was he afraid of “triggering” viewers by “thanking” COVID for putting mass shootings (by white gunmen on the fringe) on hold. “Remember life before COVID?” he asked. “Mass shooting every week. Thank God for COVID. Something had to lock these murderous whites up. and keep them in the house.”

He also made a particularly apt comparison of Trump catching the virus (and no one questioning how it happened) to a “raw-dogging” man in the 1970s. Then there was that moment when he torched Chris Christie for being so, uh, appealing to COVID.

Other choice lines included the following: (1) “I don’t know why poor whites don’t like wearing masks. You wear a mask at the Klan rally. Wear it at Walmart too!” (2) “Try wearing the mask I’ve had to wear all these years. I can’t even tell something [is] true without a punchline behind it.”

It’s good to have Chappelle back on SNL with the night still (relatively) young.

There was a tremendous amount of anticipation for this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live, as Dave Chappelle was once again hosting the first post-election episode and, finally, on Saturday morning all of the major news networks called the election for Joe Biden, who gave his victory speech along with Kamala Harris on Saturday evening.

For NBC, Saturday was a massive day as they had SNL as the nightcap but prior to that, they had No. 4 Notre Dame hosting No. 1 Clemson in one of the biggest games of the college football season. The problem with having a live sporting event ahead of something as big as Saturday’s episode of SNL is that, well, sometimes football games go into overtime and run well over their TV slot. Wouldn’t you know it, but that’s exactly what happened in South Bend, Indiana as Clemson and Notre Dame found themselves deadlocked at 33 at the end of regulation and it took two overtimes for the Irish to pull out a 47-40 win.

Not only was the game a double overtime affair, but it featured numerous lengthy replay reviews that further slowed things down, and by the time it was over, SNL had been pushed back significantly — in part due to NBC still needing a brief window after the game for local news. This, unsurprisingly, led to some very upset people who flipped over to their local NBC affiliate on Saturday night looking for Chappelle and SNL, only to be treated to two of college football’s best teams slowly battling for ACC supremacy. They did not enjoy that gift of free football.

Those waiting to watch SNL also had plenty of thoughts about the Notre Dame students storming the field in the midst of a pandemic (which, to be clear, should not happen).

For many across the country, Saturday has been a day filled with celebration and excitement as the 2020 presidential election finally concluded with former vice president Joe Biden declared the winner by national media and the president-elect.

Thousands of supporters took to the streets in cities all over the country with signs to share their excitement for the nation’s next president. The music world displayed their excitement in the form of social media posts to both Twitter and Instagram. Using the latter to share her thoughts, Cardi B shared a string of videos in which she offered an explanation for Biden’s win in the election.

Cardi told her followers that she “knew who was gonna win” simply because “God knows better.” “You know why God put Joe Biden in place?” she said in the first of three videos. “Cos you Trump supporters were getting out of line.” Cardi then discussed the treatment she’s received from Trump supporters in recent weeks, a trend that began followers her sit-down with Bernie Sanders. “These Trump supporters with a blue check on Twitter, y’all been coming at me every week for attention,” Cardi said. “Y’all tried to scare my sister off the beach, y’all broke a pole on my husband’s car.”

The “WAP” rapper then told Trump supporters to not be scared of the future following Biden’s win. “Y’all was doing the most and y’all kept bullying people and picking on people and it got to the point that a Trump follower with so many followers was trying to send people to burn down my motherf*cking house, to loot my house. Ya got out of control. This power that ya was having – it just got out of control.”

Lastly, the Bronx rapper reminded her fans that her support for Biden is not unconditional and blind. “If Joe Biden f*ck up I’m gonna tell him my own self,” Cardi said. “I’m gonna call him and say listen, you gotta fix it. It’s gonna take time, things are not going to happen in a month, in two months, in three months but it’s going to fucking happen. Joe Biden for the P!”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Celebrations broke out across the country on Saturday as television news networks finally called the American presidential election for Joe Biden, traditionally the moment a losing candidate would concede the election and the winner would be called president-elect. That moment didn’t happen thanks to Donald Trump’s insistence on baseless accusations of voter fraud, but the moment was covered with earnest attention by media around the world.

One such outlet is BFMTV, a French 24-hour news network, which had cameras rolling in Washington D.C. on Saturday to catch revelers celebrating the news that Biden had beat Trump and the latter would leave office in January. And while a reporter was doing his job, a man approached him and started one of the funniest bits of camera crashing in recent memory.

“I’ve been to France, it’s beautiful,” the man said, interrupting the broadcast. He kept getting closer, then just started naming things that are stereotypically French.

“I ate escargot. I ate a croissant,” he said, adding “hon hon hon” while he danced a bit. And then he made a reference, inexplicably, to an episode of a Cartoon Network cartoon.

“I love an omelette du fromage,” he said, wiggling his body back and forth a bit and perhaps flexing his pectorals. The latter, his only actual attempt at speaking French, is from a beloved episode of Dexter’s Laboratory, which has turned into an internet meme of sorts. The show’s titular character, Dexter, attempts to learn how to speak French by falling asleep listening to learning tapes that get stuck on the same phrase — “omelette du fromage,” or “omelette with cheese” — for hours.

As a result, Dexter wakes up the next day unable to say anything but “omelette du fromage,” and hijinks ensue, as you can see in this clip below.

The episode and its most commonly-uttered phrase, and most particularly a screengrab of Dexter whispering it into the ear of a girl, has become a meme that’s frequently popped up online over the years. And the clear reference to it on Saturday brought it back once again.

It’s a bit unfair to the broadcaster just trying to do his job on Saturday, but in a scene of joy for so many, it was especially funny to see a weird internet meme from a decades-old cartoon get brought to life on live TV.

LeBron James has long made it clear he’s no fan of Donald Trump, and so it’s no surprise that Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election in the eyes of TV networks drew celebration from the Los Angeles Lakers superstar on Saturday. But James also knew Trump’s loss will be celebrated by someone else on Saturday, and that person happens to have quite a platform on which to do it.

Dave Chappelle will host Saturday Night Live, a role he returns to after doing the same thing after Trump was elected four years ago. While Chappelle’s monologue in 2016 was cathartic for some who hoped Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton, some initially feared that news he would be back on Saturday served as a bad omen for the 2020 election. Those fears took, well, a few days to dissipate, as networks held back in declaring Biden the winner as mail-in ballots were counted up in several close races in the electoral college.

But on Saturday afternoon, Trump’s loss became more clear and LeBron had one thing on his mind: Chappelle will be ready to bring it during the show’s monologue.

“My brother about to flame that studio up tonight!” James tweeted, then using the emoji that often comes when someone is declared a “problem” on the basketball court. And given Chappelle’s history of doing event-specific stand-up on short notice, James has good reason to be excited. When hecklers upended his set in Hartford during the Oddball Comedy Festival in 2013, for example, his set the next night in Pittsburgh revolved almost entirely around the events of the prior night. And his post-election ‘SNL’ in 2016 is one of the rare instances in the show’s recent memory where the political-based comedy truly felt like it fit the moment without simply parroting events that simply actually happened, as the show’s cold opens often tend to.

James tweeted a lot about voting rights efforts made by himself and others in recent months, congratulated Joe Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris and also joked with Draymond Green that he can now visit the White House to celebrate the Lakers’ NBA title win now that Trump will be out of office come January. But he also made it clear that like a lot of people, he’ll be watching to see what Chappelle says on Saturday night.

Virginia Tech played host to undefeated and 25th ranked Liberty on Saturday in Blacksburg, and the Flames showed why they are one of the best non-Power 5 teams in the country with a 38-35 win over the Hokies that saw one of the wildest endings to a game all season.

On 4th and 6 with eight seconds to play, Hugh Freeze trotted his kicker out for a nearly impossible 58-yard field goal that was blocked by Virginia Tech, scooped up, and run back for what would have been the game-winning touchdown. As such, pandemonium broke out in Blacksburg.

However, if you listen closely to the video, you can hear the whistles just before the snap — and the kicker even turns and points to the officials after the kick is blocked — as Virginia Tech coach Justin Fuente decided to call timeout and ice the kicker right before the play ran. Instead, he iced his kick block team and allowed Freeze to rethink his decision.

From there, Virginia Tech chose to play full Hail Mary prevent coverage, not even bothering to put someone on the receiver on the wide side of the field, which allowed Liberty to calmly throw an 8-yard out route to pick up a first down and move into actual field goal range with time still on the clock. Look at this!

This time, Liberty’s kicker left no doubt — and made you realize why Freeze thought he might have the leg from 58 — when he boomed the ball through the uprights to beat the Hokies

The best part is the ESPN bottom line showing Virginia Tech as winning while Liberty’s game-winner floated through the uprights. It’s a horrific way to lose for Virginia Tech, but a reminder of why icing the kicker can go both ways and, more importantly, why with eight seconds left you can’t just not cover guys for Hail Mary coverage.

One of the biggest football games of the year will get bumped for the biggest politics speech in some time. Top-ranked Clemson will travel to South Bend, Ind. to take on N0. 4 Notre Dame in a battle of two undefeated sides. Beyond that, there’s a whole lot of intrigue over who will line up under center for the Tigers, because Clemson is forced to turn to back D.J. Uiagalelei as starting signal caller Trevor Lawrence recovers from COVID-19.

The game is scheduled to kick at 7:55 p.m. EST on NBC, but there’s one issue. Former Vice President Joe Biden was named President-Elect of the United States of America on Saturday morning, and he’s scheduled to give a victory speech from his outpost in Delaware at 8 p.m.

So for those of you who will want to watch the Tigers and the Fighting Irish, here’s what’s happening: NBC plans on sticking with the game right up until Biden steps up to the podium to address the nation. At that point, the college football showdown is getting kicked to USA Network, where it will remain until Biden finishes up his speech. However long that takes and whether Vice President-Elect Kamal Harris will also speak is is unclear, but once things are done in Delaware, the game is moving back to NBC.

Biden earned the distinction of President-Elect on Saturday when multiple media outlets called a pair of outstanding states, Pennsylvania and Nevada, in his favor, thereby pushing him past 270 votes in the Electoral College.

After four days of waiting, the record breaking number of votes in the 2020 presidential election have been counted, and the news, for once, is good: Early Saturday, a number of publications finally called it for Joe Biden. After four stressful, nightmarish years of Trump, people were quick to take to the streets in celebration. (Though few were as infectious in their joy as Spike Lee.) Social media was filled with videos of the revelry, and a lot of people said it reminded them of the ending to a certain classic blockbuster.

That film is Return of the Jedi, the world’s third-ever Star Wars film and the sixth in the nine-part “Skywalker Saga.” That film, as you probably well know, ends with the evil Galactic Empire crushed by the Rebel Alliance, its leader deposed or dead. Of course, a few decades after the film, released in 1983, we learned the bad guys made a comeback. But forget that: Jedi ends with the galaxy’s many planets and species celebrating, much as people across the country did on Saturday.

Some people went a step further, pointing out we’ve been living in the original Star Wars trilogy for a while now.

Now to split some hairs: Return of the Jedi didn’t always conclude with a global celebration. It was the Special Edition, released in 1997, that added that. Originally the rave was more localized; we only saw how they partied on Endor. What’s more, the Special Edition cruelly removed the incredibly catchy Ewok song known as “Yub Nub,” replacing it with some New Age Yanni-/John Tesh-style instrumental. One person who caught the Jedi connection made sure to get the right one: