Saturday Night Live’s big dilemma: How to write a political joke for an audience that’s done laughing

Saturday Night Live has been the same show since forever and yet every episode is different. Since its inception in 1975, the beloved and bemoaned American sketch comedy series has accommodated a new host every week, stretching to meet the celeb du jour’s hidden talents and defining quirks. There were Ariane Grande’s musical impressions. Christopher Walken pleading for “More cowbell!” And Justin Timberlake, who won an actual Emmy for writing the lyrics to “Dick in a Box”. Occasionally, the show is forced to compensate for an entirely charmless emcee. Ahem, Rudy Giuliani.

The full-time ensemble gets rejigged each season, which means that every September is someone’s first day on one of the oldest jobs in TV. Along with the ever-changing cast, the need to adapt is written into its DNA. The country’s shifting politics have long been a bedrock of SNL’s humour, but SNL doesn’t anticipate the conversation. It revamps itself to suit it.

When the American mood is hopeful, as it mostly was before Barack Obama left office, SNL was something of a crazy uncle at Christmas dinner. It didn’t matter much when the jokes were light and the sketches cringe because the audience was feeling generous. The show was so harmless that politicians regularly appeared on set to laugh at themselves. Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Chris Christie took a seat at the “Weekend Update” desk.

During Donald Trump’s administration, SNL‘s liberal viewership was angry. Antagonising the president via TV – “Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC!" Trump tweeted after a devastating Alec Baldwin impersonation – played well to a crowd spoiling for a fight. It’s the kind of humour SNL alum Seth Meyers once decried as generating “clapter” – an oversized head nod rather than a real guffaw. It wasn’t that funny, but it gave the audience the sweet relief of like-minded company.

Now, the national temper is even trickier. Joe Biden won the White House, but Americans are losing more rights, most notably abortion rights. Trump was defeated, but Trumpism is in its ascendancy. What’s the longest-running variety show on TV to do when America just isn’t in the mood to laugh?

One option, though a problematic one for a comedy series, is to join them. The tepid 8 October episode kicked off with a sketch called “So You Think You Won’t Snap”, hosted by Bowen Yang. The premise is simple: Yang is the host of a game show, the aim of which is to make its contestants go berserk. His ammunition? The week’s headlines. The jokes write themselves – or, rather, there are no jokes at all.  

For example, when Yang tells a contestant (Chloe Fineman) that Georgia senatorial candidate Herschel Walker, who supports a total abortion ban, allegedly paid for an ex’s abortion, she responds: “I bet that will come back and bite him in the butt.” The “punchline” that follows is just the real-life second-day news story: Walker’s revelation precipitated the best single fundraising day of his campaign. Politics is so dysfunctional that there’s no parodying it. “So You Think You Won’t Snap” is in on its own sad joke, yes, but that doesn’t make watching it any less depressing than watching the nightly news.

This is a rebuilding year for the cast of Saturday Night Live after the departure of some of its brightest lights: Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, Pete Davidson, and the indomitable Kate McKinnon. Would I have laughed harder if it was Bryant who “snapped” and attacked a flight attendant at the end of “So You Think You Won’t Snap”? Probably, but that’s not Fineman’s fault. Crazy uncles don’t get funnier, though you get more conditioned to laughing at their bespoke absurdities the more time you spend with them.

And SNL has been here before, rising back up after being written off. In 1995, the cast was dominated by newcomers who went on to be famous names: Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Colin Quinn. When Trump was the centre of every episode, people called it too political; now, we’re missing the good ole days. The show’s ratings sometimes slip and then they rebound.

So I generally tune out when people complain that SNL isn’t as funny as it used to be, even if I agree I’m not laughing as much. Last week’s episode with host Megan Thee Stallion was this season’s best so far, buoyed by Megan’s megawatt charisma. The show also started to find its place in the national conversation. It told actual jokes about events I would have thought too despairing for me to laugh at. 

Like a sketch about the January 6 Committee’s excruciatingly slow investigation into Trump. The panel combs through joke “posts” on a message board for the rioters: “Is there a shuttle from La Quinta Inn to Coup?” Insurrection is hard to fit in a punchline, but the skit reduced the rioters into people trying to make it to the game in time for kick-off.

By next week, SNL will be a different show again with a different host working from an America that will have already changed. Walker will be up or down in polls. The January 6 Committee will have subpoenaed Trump, who is still railing against SNL on his social media platform Truth Social – “A bad show that’s not funny or smart”, he posted this week. Yeah, yeah. We get it.

He’s not always wrong, but sometimes, even when you don’t think you’re in the mood to laugh at your uncle’s joke, it’s nice just to be with family.