Yahoo Lifestyle Dana Carvey trades in “Saturday Night Live ”Joe Biden impression for Elon Musk
The "SNL" alum returned to go "dark MAGA" while the show also introduced "Hot Jacked Trump."
Saturday Night Live isn't ready to lose Dana Carvey again just yet.
The NBC sketch show's post-election episode on Saturday was without Maya Rudolph as Vice President Kamala Harris for the first time this season following the real Harris' defeat by former President Donald Trump this week. But fellow returning alum Carvey, who has portrayed President Joe Biden since the season 50 premiere, was back at Studio 8H, this time playing billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk.
The cold open began with cast members Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman, Marcello Hernández, and Colin Jost sarcastically insisting they had all supported the president-elect this entire time.
"We have never wavered in our support of you, even when others doubted you," Yang proclaimed to camera, addressing Trump.
"We see ourselves in you," added Nwodim. "We look at you and think, 'That's me.'"
NBC
James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump on 'Saturday Night Live'After declaring the season's three new featured players — Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, and Jane Wickline — were the only staffers who voted for Harris, Sherman said the show was excited to debut a new impression: "Hot Jacked Trump."
"They finally got the body right," said SNL's resident Trump impersonator, James Austin Johnson, wearing an exaggerated muscle suit. "From now on, we're going to do a very flattering portrayal of Trump because he's, frankly, my hero, and he's going to make an incredible president and, eventually, king. We love you, buddy."
Thompson then offered some encouragement. "If our planet falls apart, we can all go to Mars with the other man we love and trust: Elon Musk," he said. Then entered an energetic Carvey, jumping around the stage in an all-black outfit identical to that which the real Musk wore when he hopped around the stage at a Trump rally last month.
Related: Dana Carvey says Kamala Harris 'bent over laughing' as he did Joe Biden impression for her at SNL
"Check it out — dark MAGA," Carvey's Musk shouted, pointing at his black "Make America Great Again" baseball cap. "But seriously, I run the country now. America's gonna be like one of my rockets. You know, they're super cool and super fun, but there's a slight chance it could blow up and everybody dies."
NBC
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The cast closed the cold open with a quick rendition of the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." with Carvey's Musk and Johnson's ripped Trump joining in. This was a callback to Alec Baldwin's Trump somberly singing the Village People's "Macho Man" in the episode following the 45th president's loss in 2020, which was a send-up of a previous cold open in which Kate McKinnon's Hillary Clinton infamously performed "Hallelujah" on a piano after the former secretary of state's loss to Trump in 2016.
Carvey, a master impressionist who was in the SNL cast from 1986-1993, returned this season to play Biden as part of a political quartet that dominated the cold opens and included Rudolph's Harris, Andy Samberg as Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, and comedian Jim Gaffigan as Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz.
Like Trump, Musk once served as a controversial host for Saturday Night Live, holding court over the May 8, 2021 episode, in which he inaccurately declared himself "the first person with Asperger's to host SNL." (Original cast member and 2003 host Dan Aykroyd actually holds that distinction.)
This week's episode was hosted by comedian Bill Burr, joined by first-time musical guest Mk.gee.
Watch the full cold open above.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.
