Saturday Night Live dove into midterm elections in its cold open, with Heidi Gardner taking on the role of PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff.
She was joined by Mikey Day’s Dr. Oz, Kenan Thompson’s Herschel Walker and Cecily Strong’s Kari Lake during the Oct. 29 episode. Gardner’s Woodruff began the segment by introducing the three candidates who went from being underdogs to stars of the Republican Party — though she’s unsure how.
“OK, well, all three of you have been gaining in the polls the past few weeks despite none of you having any political experience,” she said. “Mr. Walker, you’re now within three points of Senator Raphael Warnock. Why is your support growing?”
“And that’s where I don’t know,” Thompson’s Walker responds. “The whole world is a mystery. Ain’t it? For example, a Thermos — it keeps the hot things hot but also the cold things cold. My question is, how do it decide? We’re looking into that very much.”
When asked why millions of people in Georgia are voting for him, despite another woman coming forward to say that he paid for her abortion as well, and his ex-wife saying he once held a gun to her head, he responded, “Gas. Gas prices are really high.”
Gardner also asked Lake about her consistent denial that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and how Dr. Oz got ahead 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 probably find another “morally questionable company” to work with, before cutting to an ad from My Pillow with James Austin Johnson’s Mike Lindell.
Tom Hanks made an appearance in a couple of later sketches — one about an idea for an animated film about traveling suitcases, offering to be its version of Woody; and the second in a Halloween ride as David S. Pumpkins, a previous character Hanks played on SNL.
