‘SNL’: Jim Carrey Momentarily Revives ‘Ace Ventura’ Bit to Call Donald Trump a ‘Loser’

Saturday Night Live went all out with its cold open this week, even allowing Jim Carrey to trot out a classic character from one of his old movies. This week, Carrey was back to portray presumptive President-elect Joe Biden, where he gave a triumphant victory speech with just a hint of gloating. That included a break from character where Carrey delivered a classic line from his movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

“We have to act graciously in victory,” Carrey said as a parody Biden. “We have to go forward together. Unfortunately, there are situations in life — and this is one of them — where there must be a winner, and… a loser.” Carrey somehow turned the two-syllable word into four or five syllables at least, screwing up his facial expression and making a hand gesture that was hard to miss. The live audience cheered uproariously as he invoked the 1994 comedy that was one of his career’s major breakthroughs.

Carrey was not alone in the cold open, joined by Maya Rudolph, who again played Biden’s running mate and presumptive Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris. She wore an outfit that was an exact match for the real Harris’ suit, worn in her victory speech earlier in the night. Meanwhile, cast member Beck Bennett played CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, while Alex Moffat played John King.

The cold open also flashed over to Alec Baldwin playing a parody of President Donald Trump, and as in real life, this SNL Trump refused to concede. He falsely declared victory in the election and falsely claimed that there had been widespread voter fraud.

Baldwin got to deliver the stand-out joke of the cold open — approaching a piano as Trump and playing a mournful, minor-key rendition of “Macho Man” by The Village People. Trump has used the song extensively in his campaign, to the surprise and amusement of many Americans; however, this was also a case where SNL was making fun of itself in retrospect. Back in 2016 when Trump was first elected, the show had a long, joke-free segment where Kate McKinnon sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in character as Hillary Clinton, baffling many heartbroken Americans.

The rest of the night was full of hits and misses for SNL as well, with some sketches becoming dangerously earnest in light of the projected election results. In fairness, the SNL team has been on a non-stop sprint for the last month and a half, with six brand new episodes in a row each week. Typically, the show takes every third or fourth week off, but it took no breaks in the run-up to the election. Exhausted cast member Bowen Yang even joked about this on Twitter, hinting that they will “never again” go for this long.