The $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion voting systems against Fox News took center stage Saturday during the opening sketch of “Saturday Night Live.”
Standing in for the real “Fox & Friends” trio were Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner and Bowen Yang, who tried to explain away recently revealed texts send by Fox hosts, which cast doubt on 2020 election fraud complaints despite giving them credibility on air, insisting that only a portion of those emails were released.
Day noted that a real text saying “Rudy Giuliani is insane” was meant to read “insanely hot, and I want to lick that dye off his head,” a reference to a mishap when Giuliani’s hair dye apparently ran during a news conference at Republic National Committee headquarters.
The trio then invited Trump supporter Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, to the program, warning him to avoid saying anything disparaging about Dominion because of the lawsuit. Played by SNL’s new Trump impersonator James Austin Johnson, Lindell proceeded to announce that each voting machine actually contained “a Venezuelan oompa-loompa inside that eats the votes with its little mouth.”
Host Travis Kelce, the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs tight end (who had his entire family in attendance, including brother Jason, center for the losing Philadelphia Eagles) brought a hulking John Cena-like vibe to the show. And he handled the comedy with style. Jason Kelce even made it into a skit, playing opposite his brother as Gardner’s new boyfriend.
In one funny pre-recorded bit, Yang is seen with a group of women before turning to the camera and, in the style of a prescription medicine ad, beginning a pitch for Straight Male Friend, the low-effort pal for any gay man where the interactions are blissfully superficial, such as playing video games and eating hot wings.
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“Does Straight Male Friend provide the same deep, rewarding relationship that I have with my girls? No,” says Yang. “Does Straight Male Friend know my last name? No. But that’s kind of the beauty of it.”
Kelce and Gardner teamed up again for a sketch where they play reunited lovers who get interrupted in bed by Yang, playing Garrett from the dating app Hinge, who was wearing a T-shirt featuring Stewie Griffin from “Family Guy.”
The highlight of the sketch was Gardner breaking on a number of occasions, as Yang struck a pose as Stewie, and then disappeared into a bathroom to try and convince himself not to kill the two of them.
Eventually, Kelce invites Yang into bed with both of them, at which point Gardner completely gives up all hope of keeping a straight face.