Mikey Day Steps In As Joe Biden In Age-Skewering ‘Saturday Night Live’ Cold Open Featuring A Visit From “Spirit Of Halloween” Christopher Walken

Saturday Night Live featured another Joe Biden in its cold open tonight, this time with Mikey Day portraying the POTUS in an offbeat Halloween-themed skit that featured a cameo by Christopher Walken.

Day is the latest figure to play Biden, as James Austin Johnson played the president last season and Jim Carrey played him during the 2020 election season.

More from Deadline

• Timothée Chalamet To Return As Host Of ‘Saturday Night Live’

• Who Are The ‘SNL’ Season 49 Hosts, Cast & Guests? What’s The Show’s Schedule?

• Padma Lakshmi Makes 'Saturday Night Live' Cameo In Cooking Competition Skit

The cold open was a bit disjointed, like three skits in one, starting with Biden, with his slow gait, putting up Halloween decorations in the Oval Office and proving he can, at 80, climb a ladder. Then there was a visit from new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Michael Longfellow) along with his Black son (Devon Walker), also named Mike. “No one knows his last name,” the new speaker tells the president.

And then there was a visit from Walken.

“They call me Papa Pumpkin,” Walken said, before reading a poem.

“Trick or treat, Schmell my feet, Give me something good to eat. If you don’t, I don’t care. I’ll pull down your underwear.”

The cold open started with Day as Biden, mimicking his speaking style, as the POTUS is in the midst up putting up decorations and insisting, “I’m not out of breath. I’m just excited because Halloween is the greatest holiday in the world. The world.”

“Well look, here’s the bottom line. The world is a pretty scary place right now. Wars, shootings, climate change, everything in the new Britney book.”

He added, “I want to put everyone at ease. Nothing puts anyone at ease like an 80-year-old man hanging Halloween decorations.”

Then “your old boy Joe” climbed the ladder, proving he can still do it. “When I was a kid, a ladder was cutting-edge technology. This was like an iPad.”

Later, Biden picked up a severed arm and realized “that is not a decoration. That’s an arm our dog Commander ripped off a Secret Service agent.” In real life, the Bidens’ dog has bitten multiple agents and staffers.

The age-jokes continued in the skit, as Biden admitted, “I love Halloween. In fact, a lot of my closest friends are ghosts. That’s why I have a plan for Halloween. It’s called Boo-Back Boo-er.” (A play on Build Back Better.)

The plan, Biden said, has “all the classics — goblins, ghouls and of course, the Grim Reaper, who I physically fight ever single day.”

In what is either an indication of just how long Biden has been on the national stage or how difficult he has been for SNL to nail down, a slew of other performers also have played him. In addition to Day, Johnson and Carrey, he’s been satirized by Kevin Nealon, Woody Harrelson, John Mulaney, Alex Moffat and Jason Sudeikis. When he hosted in 2021, Sudeikis even appeared in a sketch as “the ghost of Biden past” to Johnson’s present-day POTUS.

It was all but certain that SNL would feature some reference to the biggest political news of the week, the election of unknown and ultra-conservative Johnson as the new speaker and second-in-line to the presidency. SNL played up Johnson’s anonymity, but also a little-known part of his personal life: He and his wife raised a Black teenager, Michael, as a son. The son, though, is now an adult and doesn’t appear in family photos on Johnson’s website. Johnson’s office said that it is because Michael does not want to be involved in the family’s public life.

In the skit, Michael, the son, says of his adopted father, “I’m his adult Black son. I’m only 11 years younger than him and I’m kind of a secret. It’s normal. Don’t look into that at all.”

Best of Deadline

• SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreements: Full List Of Movies And TV Series

• 2024 Presidential Election Debate Schedule: Dates, Times, Who'll Be There And Who Won't

• 2023 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.