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“SATURDAY NIGHT Live” comics Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett never imagined they’d one day be starring on the President’s most-tweeted-about TV show.
The funny duo — and longtime buddies — cut their teeth on sketch comedy with skits about smoking pot, playing a drinking game and wondering if a roommate was gay for their YouTube channel “Good Neighbor Stuff” back when they were in their 20s living in Southern California — and only dreaming of making it big.
Now, the friends, both 32, are parodying politics in segments that trigger angry tweets by President Trump.
“It’s kind of gratifying, because it means we’re doing our job well,” says Bennett, who has a recurring role as a shirtless Vladimir Putin in the “SNL” Trump skits. “It’s funny, and it’s also like we’re doing something right if it’s upsetting him. (But) the show’s goal isn’t to upset him by any means. It’s to make a funny reflect on what’s happening.”
Trump has slammed “SNL” as “terrible” and “unwatchable” and called Alec Baldwin’s impersonations of him “meanspirited.” The thin-skinned President opined it’s “time to retire” the longrunning NBC program for good.
It’s taken a slight toll on Mooney. “I get a little scared,” Mooney says of Trump’s criticisms. “Whenever anybody says what you do isn’t good, it’s always unflattering and makes me feel uncomfortable. But when the person who’s in charge of the United States of America says, ‘Not good,’ I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s a little unflattering.’ ”
If dealing with Trump isn’t intimidating enough, there was also the time Mooney had to face off with hip-hop star Kanye West in a rap battle — albeit in a sketch for an “SNL” episode last year. In that segment, Mooney hypes himself up as a burgeoning rapper seeking his big break, only to get more than he bargained for when he trades rhymes with West. The comical skit ends with Mooney believing he’d won, when he clearly hadn’t.
Turns out, the duo hit it off at the after-party.
After first joining forces as students in a University of Southern California comedy troupe in 2003, Mooney and Bennett teamed up once again in 2007, along with a couple of others, to create their “Good Neighbor Stuff” sketch comedy squad.
They quickly earned a cult following thanks to their brilliantly silly videos, which included memorable characters like Mooney’s struggling comic Bruce Chandling or his intentionally awkward man-on-the-street interviewer.
They originally planned on turning their viral success into their own sketch show — until “SNL” came calling.M ooney and Bennett joined the iconic weekly show in 2013 as featured players, and by 2015 they were full-time cast members.
Their rise to “SNL” stardom mirrors the path followed by another pair of classic best friends, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Fey and Poehler met at a Chicago improv theater in 1993 and joined the Upright Citizens Brigade before making it to Studio 8H.
Like Fey and Poehler, Bennett and Mooney hope to collaborate together for a long time. “We came to the realization that it’s more fun to make stuff with your friends and work with people that you have sort of an understanding with,” Bennett said.