Michael Strahan's Lisp and Tooth Gap Mocked on 'SNL'
Saturday Night Live mocked Michael Strahan for having a lisp and a gap in his teeth. The cold open of SNL was the cast members mocking Fox NFL Sunday. Devon Walker played Strahan was seen with a big tooth gap while talking with a lisp. The rest of the cast included Kenan Thompson playing Curt Menefee, Mikey Day playing Howie Long, James Austin Johnson playing Jimmy Johnson and Molly Kearney playing Terry Bradshaw. It also included Bowen Yang who played Rep. George Santos, and the spoof came after the New York Giants lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round of the playoffs.
In the skit, Strahan talked about how he's been a big Giants fan since he played for the team from 1993-2007 and how great they look despite losing by a big margin. And at the end, the crew looked back at their predictions of the game, and Strahan said that he was right when it comes to everyone having fun.
Strahan has made fun of his tooth gap in the past. In 2021, the Good Morning America host went to social media to reveal that he was fixing his tooth gap, which led to fans being angry. However, Strahan revealed that he really didn't go through with it as it was an April Fool's joke.
"I truly did not think people cared that much about my teeth," Strahan said on the Ellen Degeneres Show at the time. "I just did it as a little prank thinking a few of my Instagram followers were going to go, 'Oh he's crazy.' They would know it was fake. ...I ruined part of my vacation because I was on spring break with the kids and my phone just blows up: 700 text messages, 400 emails and then I got everybody trying to FaceTime me to see. I just ignored everybody. I'm here to report that it was a report. People still think it's real!" In Strahan's NFL career, he was selected to the Pro Bowl seven times, led the Giants to a Super Bowl win in 2007 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014.
Walker joined the cast of SNL in 2022. Before becoming a featured player, Walker was selected for Comedy Central's Up Next in 2017 and has written for Freeform's Everything's Trash and Netflix's Big Mouth.