Saturday Night Live ducked into the cold in the midterm elections, with Heidi Gardner taking on the role of PBS News Hour host Judy Carline Woodruff.
She was accompanied by Dr. Mikey Day’s Oz, Kenan Thompson’s Herschel Walker, and Cecily Strong’s Kari Lake on the October 29 episode. Gardner’s Woodruff kicked off the segment by introducing the three candidates who went from underdogs to Republican Party stars — though she’s not sure how.
“Okay, all three of you have won in the polls in recent weeks, despite none of you having any political experience,” she said. “Mr. Walker, you are now within three points of Senator Raphael Warnock. Why is your support growing?”
“And there I don’t know,” responds Thompson’s Walker. “The whole world is a mystery. Is it not? For example, a thermos – it keeps the hot things warm, but also the cold things cold. My question is, how does it decide? We are very busy with that.”
When asked why millions of people in Georgia are voting for him, despite another woman coming forward to say that he also paid for her abortion, and his ex-wife said he once held a gun to her head, he replied, “Gas. Gas prices are very high.”
Gardner also asked Lake about her consistent denial that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and how Dr. Oz advanced in the polls.
One of the later sketches in the show poked fun at Kanye “Ye” West going to Skechers to try and work with them, and they turned him down. “Thanks, but no thanks, Kanye,” Yang said, adding that West will likely find another “morally questionable company” to work with, before cutting to a My Pillow ad with James Austin Johnson’s Mike Lindell.
Tom Hanks appeared in a few later sketches – one about an idea for an animated film about traveling suitcases, offering to be Woody’s version; and the second in a Halloween ride as David S. Pumpkins, a previous character Hanks played on SNL.
