The veteran performer understood how to engage the live audience on „SNL“—to often-hilarious effect.
For a show that prides itself on being, well, live, Saturday Night Live doesn’t usually thrive on engaging its in-studio audience. The machine of the long-running program doesn’t lend itself to spontaneity; any participation from the crowd is typically scripted.
But last night’s episode had a shaggier, looser vibe. Credit that to the host, Jack Black, and, in a surprise twist, last week’s musical guest, Morgan Wallen.
Wallen wasn’t actually present; the country musician created headlines last week when he bucked the tradition of sharing pleasantries during the goodbyes at the end of the night and abruptly walked off-stage straight to camera. The move was perceived as rude to the cast. Shortly thereafter, he posted a photo of his private jet to Instagram with the caption, “Get me to God’s country,” a seeming culture-war taunt that quickly became a meme.
In last night’s cold open, the SNL cast member James Austin Johnson, the show’s resident Donald Trump impressionist, responded to the dig. In character as the president, Johnson launched into a wandering monologue about Trump’s wide-reaching tariffs, which included targets such as the unpopulated McDonald Islands. SNL’s Trump envisioned the islands as a paradise inhabited by anthropomorphic Chicken McNuggets and a large, hula-skirt-wearing burger—a riff on the president’s well-documented love of McDonald’s.
