‘SNL’ Gives Anthony Fauci The Full Sex Symbol Treatment As COVID-19 Vaccine Heats Up Cold Open

Dominic Patten
·2 min read
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Is there no one Kate McKinnon can’t play?

One week after rolling out her sauced up Rudy Giuliani again, the Saturday Night Live MVP was leading tonight’s coronavirus vaccine fueled cold opening as Dr. Anthony Fauci – all American sex symbol.

“If enough Americans get this vaccine, you’ll forget who I am,” McKinnon’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director told Beck Bennett’s Wolf Blitzer. “I want to go back to being an anonymous hunk,” she added as one of many bras were tossed into the skit Tom Jones style.

“Any other year, I’m a two, this year I’m a 10,” proclaimed the bespectacled Fauci

Of course, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the first person to portray Fauci this year on SNL was Brad Pitt, back in April – which brings the whole sex symbol thing full circle in a way.

Introduced as “the American Gothic of the whole coronavirus situation,” by Beckett’s Blitzer (“An indoor man with an outdoor name”), McKinnon’s Fauci and Heidi Gardner’s Dr. Deborah Brix promised America the just approved vaccine would make it to most of them, eventually.

“July 20bada-bada,” stated Fauci as the date to pencil in after the “healthcare workers, your McDreamys, your McSteamys” got the protection against Covid-19. “We’re going to distribute to states alphabetically, starting with A-California and then BA-New York City,” McKinnon added.

As great as McKinnon is week after week in whatever she does, once you got past the Fauci appreciation society quips, this was not one of the strong SNL cold openers of the year. Which is saying something with the caliber of the Jim Carrey as Joe Biden, Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump and Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris routines we’ve seen since SNL returned on October 3.

Hosted by Timothée Chalamet and featuring the legendary Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as musical guests, tonight’s penultimate SNL of 2020 comes one day after the SCOTUS rejected what many perceived as a last ditch lawsuit by Trump supporters to give losing incumbent some reelection hopes. The eighth episode of the NBC show’s 46th season also is just two days before the Electoral College meets, votes and declares former VP Biden the election winner on December 14.

Even as the FDA gave the green light to Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday, today saw the nation pummeled once again with the deadly virus. Today it was reported that there have been 16.2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the USA and more than 298,000 deaths with over 3,000 Americans dying every day this past week alone.

Watch the full cold open above.

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