‘SNL’ in tough spot
As “Saturday Night Live” opens its 46th season, the show is faced with two challenges:a pandemic and finding comedy amid the president’s COIVD diagnosis./
Live from New York, it’s a delicate balancing act.
As “Saturday Night Live” opens its 46th season, the show is faced with two unprecedented challenges: Doing the show during a pandemic and combing for comedy amid President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis.
“SNL” reps declined to comment to the Daily News on Friday, but Trump’s COVID -19 condition was likely to have caused a frenzy of rewrites at 30 Rock.
“It’s a big blow to their preparation because by Thursday night, they ’ve generally got at least a basic sense of the structure of the show,” Robert Thompson, the founding director of Syracuse University ’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, told the Daily News Friday. “It’s certainly not exactly where it’s going to be performed on Saturday, but by Thursday there’s an idea of what it looks like. I am sure when this news came in, it had to have thrown this entire outline and lineup for a loop.
“I have no knowledge of what the sketches were, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that an awful lot of what they had already prepared had to probably be completely thrown away, and other stuff overhauled.”
Alec Baldwin portrays Trump as a bumbling buffoon on the show, but such a performance may not tickle the funny bone when the 74-year-old president has an illness that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and more than 1 million people worldwide.
“It’s funny to make fun of the rallies,” Thompson said. “Not so easy to make fun of this diagnosis.”
Had Trump not been diagnosed with the disease, Tuesday’s first presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden might have served as a fanciful farce.
“Saturday Night Live” had previously confirmed that Jim Carrey would be stepping into the role of Biden, with former “SNL” regular Maya Rudolph returning as his running mate Kamala Harris, a role she played last season. On Thursday, before Trump’s condition was known, the show tweeted video of the two getting in makeup and costumes for their roles.