Dave Chappelle returned to the Saturday Night Live stage tonight, hosting the season’s first 2020 post-election episode. During his monologue, the comedian and actor commented on the recent win by President-Elect Joe Biden by addressing the events America went through Saturday. Speaking about a great-grandfather who was born a slave that he never met and only heard of, he posited what he would say if he could see him and the country today amid a Donald Trump administration.
The monologue ended with him poking fun at himself and Chappelle’s Show landing on Netflix and HBO Max, and for him not being paid for it given his exit from the show. Subsequently, he moved on to the reaction his foreign friends had to Trump’s loss to Joe Biden on Saturday. When they told him America would be safer now, he said it didn’t feel too safe here by noting the coronavirus and mass shootings that plagued the nation before the pandemic.
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But Trump ended up being his big topic for the monologue, lamenting Trump’s use of the term “Kung flu” to reference the coronavirus, calling it racist but funny and something he should be saying as a comedian. It goes on from there and is worth your time, for the awkwardness and the laughter — including quips toward Trump for suggesting light cures COVID, as well as drinking bleach.
Chappelle goes on to compare Trump returning to the White House after COVID, tearing his mask off to “kill four more people.” He further states the former reality TV star getting the COVID serum is similar to him going to a homeless shelter with a bag of cheeseburgers, claiming, “these are mine,” further joking “Don’t let hunger dictate your life.”
While the episode is the first time in four years that Chappelle hosted, it might look to be a new tradition for the sketch comedy series as the 47-year-old hosted the first post-election episode of SNL in 2016. Though that episode was more melancholy in its tone following the unexpected victory of The Apprentice star, the tone for this weekend has been far different amid the ongoing celebrations among Americans taking to the streets in some of the biggest cities, including Philadelphia, Atlanta, Washington and New York. Timed appropriately to his “comeback tour,” Chappelle’s episode of SNL, fraught with humor and grace, won him an Emmy that year, with many apt sketches and even more so now in hindsight following the world’s four years with Trump.
After a lengthy and hard-wrought election season and four-day review of remaining votes in a handful of states, the race between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was officially called Saturday morning. Following the Nov. 3 election, voters elected Biden to become the 46th President of the United States, as per projections from the Associated Press and CBS News after analysts found the state of Pennsylvania pushing him over the requisite 270 electoral vote threshold.
The election came to a head with many battleground states, including Michigan and Wisconsin, being won by Biden through incredibly close margins. While Biden is the projected winner of the election, Trump has already expressed that he and his campaign will challenge many of the outcomes by requesting a recount or challenging the court’s decision.
Though delayed tonight, Chappelle will be joined by musical guests Foo Fighters, who filmed a few promos ahead of the episode’s premiere. The band has been musical guests on the NBC series seven times between 1995 and 2017. They also played with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in 2012, during an episode, in which the British singer-songwriter was both host and musical guest.
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