SNL is off this week, but that doesn’t mean that the world of comedy got a break from the show’s version of Donald Trump. James Austin Johnson crashed the cold open of the latest episode of SNL UK.
“Ooo, you can say ‘shit’ on this one,” Johnson’s Trump remarked as he discovered one of the key differences between live TV in the United Kingdom versus in America.
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When I saw that Johnson’s Trump had popped up on SNL UK, I groaned. This portrayal, despite Johnson’s best efforts, isn’t working anymore. There is very little funny about what Trump is doing.
But I was surprised to see how well Johnson’s Trump worked in this cold open. Alongside Freddie Mitchell’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and George Fourarces’s Andy Burnham, this was an effective character. The jokes were sharp and topical. At least until the cold open shifted to the “James Austin Johnson stands in the middle of the stage and breaks the fourth wall” bit that SNL also falls back on.
“Me and Putin were just talking about you,” Johnson’s Trump told Mitchell’s Zelenskyy. “Not in the nice way! Very bad, very bad.”
SNL UK has been quietly on fire since launching last year, and maybe we need to send some of its writers to the American version of the show in a job swap.
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The Omnicosm founder. Snackology, Popculturology and The Cold Open writer. A Rochester, N.Y., native now living in the Washington, D.C., area. Won’t pass up a Genny Cream Ale.
