‘SNL’ Tackles Coronavirus With Debbie Downer Return, Soap Opera Spoof & Weekend Update Jabs

Nellie Andreeva
·3 min read

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The growing coronavirus outbreak has been the biggest news story of the last seven days, and it was the dominating topic on Saturday Night Live, hosted by Daniel Craig.

Following a coronavirus-themed Cold Open featuring now-former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, SNL brought back a cult favorite character, Rachel Dratch’s Debbie Downer, for a wedding reception skit that touched on the ongoing health crisis. Dratch, who had been a regular presence on SNL in the past couple of months portraying former presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar, showed up at the reception wearing a full-face gas mask looking to avoid contracting the contagious disease. ‘

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In typical Debbie Downer fashion, the joyous occasion that a wedding is had no impact on her downcast mood, which she tried to pass onto everyone else with her signature awkward comments.

The outbreak of COVID-19 also was part of the basic premise of The Sands of Modesto, a skit parodying a daytime soap, in which “the staging of certain scenes has been altered for the actors’ safety.”

Following CDC’s guidelines for safe interactions during the outbreak, the actors used tissues and Lysol when their characters had to pick up the phone or open the door and kept their distance and shook hands and hugged from afar. Things escalated when a scene required kissing and making out but the actors found creative ways to keep intimacy coronavirus-proof using various props, including plastic wrap. Watch the video below:

SNL’s Weekend Update opened with the news of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders remaining the only democratic candidates for president, with several jokes about the fact that all three current presidential candidates, Biden, Sanders and incumbent Donald Trump, are over 70. That provided a segue to the topic of coronavirus, which is known to disproportionally affect older men.

“At this point, between Bernie, Biden and Trump I think the next debate should just be on that cruise ship, and whichever one of them can beat coronavirus becomes out next president,” Colin Jost quipped, referring to the cruise ship that is being kept off the coast of San Francisco with multiple afflicted passengers on board.

There were jokes about Trump’s response to the virus, including the President’s recent comment that he has “natural ability” for the coronavirus. Watch below the segment, which also includes a joke by Michael Che about democrats and condoms that drew big laughs.

 

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