Sunday, March 30, 2025

'SNL' mocks the Signal group chat in its cold open and Weekend Update

Last night's Saturday Night Live began by mocking last week's top U.S. political story in Group Chat Cold Open.

A group of teenagers (Mikey Madison, Sarah Sherman, Ego Nwodim) get added to a group chat with Secretary Pete Hegseth (Andrew Dismukes), Vice President JD Vance (Bowen Yang), Secretary Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández) and Editor of the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg (Mikey Day).
Where's National Security Advisor Mike Waltz? Didn't he start the group chat? I guess he's not known, disliked, or funny enough to be parodied in the skit. On the other hand, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is all three, which is one of the reasons both this scandal and Hegseth are called Whiskeyleaks, a nickname alongside Kegseth. Hegseth deserves his own label on this blog and I think I'll use Kegseth.

SNL continued mocking Whiskeyleaks, both Hegseth and the scandal, in the first segment of Weekend Update: Pete Hegseth Sends Attack Plans on Signal Group Chat.

Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visiting a Salvadoran prison.
At least Waltz made the preview image along with Hegseth, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio, and had a couple of jokes told about him, although I think the one about Hegseth was funnier. As for Kristi Noem's photo op, Michael Che's quip about OnlyFans reminds me of what Steve M. wrote at No More Mister Nice Blog yesterday.
It's obvious that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's visit to El Salvador's brutal Cecot prison was part of the the Trump administration's effort to keep pumping out images of performative machismo in order to appeal to Trump's multi-ethnic, multi-generational coalition of male voters (a "badass" woman in skintight clothing is a familiar trope in male-coded popular culture)...The Trumpers know what boys like.
A conservative female politician using her sex appeal? I've seen that before.

Weekend Update continued with Will Smith's New Album, 23andMe Goes Bankrupt.

Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like three girls trying to stab [their] mother after she turned off the Wi-Fi.
Will Smith's new album alone qualifies this entry as the Sunday entertainment feature, but so does Jost's rant about Paddington and to a lesser extent, Melania Trump's campaign against deepfake revenge porn plus more over the jump.

Too bad 23andMe filing for bankruptcy only got a throwaway line; I guess the privacy concerns weren't funny enough. On the other hand, Joann's bankruptcy earned an entire segment, Joann on JOANN Fabric and Crafts' Bankruptcy.

Joann (Ashley Padilla) stops by Weekend Update to discuss JOANN Fabric and Crafts announcing store closures.
I wish SNL gave all the casualties of the Retail Apocalypse that much attention. Imagine the one of the teens from the cold open bemoaning the loss of Forever 21!

Follow over the jump for more highlights from last night's show plus the top posts from the 14th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News featuring SNL.

Mikey Madison Monologue had more entertainment content.

First-time host Mikey Madison talks about her film Anora, having a twin brother and doing her own dancing stunts.
Congratulations on your Oscar! May your being a host earn you an Emmy nomination and get you on your way to an EGOT!

I love SNL's commercial parodies, but the closest I could find was Please Don’t Destroy - Mikey Madison Is Squidward.

Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy have questions about Mikey Madison's outfit.
That's a concept up there with the HBO Mario Kart trailer, except it would be on Paramount+, not HBO.

Next, a music video, Big Dumb Line ft. Joe Jonas.

A group of people (Mikey Madison, Ego Nwodim, Chloe Fineman, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman) sing about their favorite thing to do on the weekend in New York City.
HAHAHAHA! I think I see another Emmy nominee for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

Speaking of New York, I'm closing the highlights with Planning New York - An SNL Animated Short.

Two men (Bowen Yang, Michael Longfellow) imagine and plan out New York City.
This video speaks to me despite not having been to New York City in more than four decades, as I regularly watch Dinomite Twins on Twitch, who explore the Big Apple, so I'm getting a feel for the biggest city in the U.S. This captures the chaos, but not the history.

Now for the most read entries featuring videos from SNL during the blogging year just ended.


Elon Musk crashes the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting in last night's cold open from March 2, 2025 earned 581 default and 618 raw page views by 11:59 PM EDT on March 20, 2020 to rank sixth overall by the first measure, eighth among entries posted during the 14th year of the blog, and twelfth overall by raw page views. It earned those page views by being shared at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page. It's currently the second most read entry during March 2025 behind Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties with 581 default and 629 raw page views.


'Trump' hijacks the Resurrection to sell Bibles on 'SNL' for Easter from March 31, 2024 earned 382 default and 474 raw page views during the 14th year of this blog to rank 14th by default page views, 23rd among entries posted during the 14th year of the blog, and 27th overall by raw page views. I shared the link at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page during April 2024, earning it 337 default and 382 raw page views to rank first by both measures during the month. Expect me to recycle this paragraph when I write a retrospective about holidays, probably on April Fools Day


'SNL' lampoons the Fox News interview of Kamala Harris in its cold open earned 1 follow on Threads, the most follows of one of my shares on that platform last year.

That concludes this post. Stay tuned for the final entry of March 2025.

Previous posts in this series Retrospectives about Saturday Night Live from previous years. Previous retrospectives about holidays.
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