The Weekend Update segment on Saturday Night Live is extremely tied to American politics and the news of the week that was, which is why the final show of 2020 had to acknowledge the dying days of a Donald Trump presidency. Saturday’s episode is also apparently the last that will tape while Trump is in office, which is why the show choose to put together a montage of his weirdest moments over the last four years.
There were no tweets about phantom election fraud or any of the countless weird political moves or his impeachment or anything like that, just the weirdest visual moments of his time in office. And so while Semisonic’s once-seminal “Closing Time” played, scenes like Trump touching The Orb, screaming while pretending to drive a big truck, and cherishing the gentle touch of a slightly-unsettling Easter Bunny were some notable highlights.
It’s admittedly a bit overwhelming to see all those crazy moments lined up back-to-back, but it just goes to show how unorthodox a Trump presidency truly was. Many Americans longed for the days a tan Obama suit drew the ire of a nation, instead we were truly bombarded by Trump weirdness on a daily basis over the last four years.
Weekend Update will undoubtedly outlast a Trump presidency, just as it had already predated it, but it was pretty clear that the show doesn’t seem like it will miss Trump once he’s gone and Joe Biden is in the White House. The news segment made a point to test out some Biden jokes just to get its feet wet, but here’s hoping the four years that follow aren’t worthy of a montage once it’s over.