Every four years, you can count on presidential candidates to stop by “Saturday Night Live” to poke a little fun at themselves and get some extra exposure. But the first to show up in the 2020 cycle waited until she was out of the race.
Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts who pulled the plug on her presidential ambitions earlier this week, made an appearance this weekend on the show that’s been goofing on her for months.
The show’s opening scene had her appearing as a Fox News Channel guest with host Laura Ingraham (Kate McKinnon), who introduced a clip of Warren’s debate drubbing of Mike Bloomberg. What played instead was this week’s viral video of Warren’s dog, Bailey, swiping a campaign staffer’s burrito.
“Just to be clear,” McKinnon asked, “were you the dog or the burrito?”
“I was the dog,” Warren said in tough-guy tones.
Please welcome Sen. Elizabeth Warren to The Ingraham Angle. #SNL pic.twitter.com/bqjR7bGZH4
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) March 8, 2020
Warren bragged that she built a wide coalition of support from “teachers, preschool teachers, middle school teachers and teacher’s pets.” She added she’s been practicing self-care in recent days: “prank calling big banks, drag racing Subarus, avoiding Twitter ...”
And when Kate McKinnon did an off-camera quick change and resurfaced dressed just like Warren, the candidate she’s been impersonating all season, Warren assured her, “I’m not dead, I’m just in the Senate.”
In addition to that “SNL” newcomer, the episode brought back some favorite characters not seen in years, including cast-member-turned-announcer Darrell Hammond’s take on Chris Matthews, who found his backward views a perfect fit for Ingraham’s Fox show.
Cecily Strong revived her strident but ill-informed Weekend Update commentator known as The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party (last seen in 2018) to sound off on “the Qdoba virus.”
Diving even deeper into the archive was Rachel Dratch, who returned as her 2004-05 sensation Debbie Downer, bumming out wedding guests with grim takes on Covid 19, the #MeToo movement and, as always, feline AIDS, “the No. 1 killer of domestic cats.” And keeping a straight face throughout.
Dratch (like Strong a product of Chicago improv) left “SNL” in 2006 but has been appearing this season as Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
