SNL: Maya Rudolph Parodies VP Debate as Jim Carrey’s Joe Biden Transforms Into Fly on Mike Pence’s Head
Maya Rudolph reprised her role as Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris for the skit, and Beck Bennett played Vice President Mike Pence and Kate McKinnon portrayed moderator Susan Page.
The skit, which also featured plexiglass barriers between the candidates, touched on Pence’s penchant for interrupting his opponent — and Harris’ ability to call him out for the transgressions with both her words and her facial expressions. At one point, the California senator turned to her opponent to tell him, “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking.”
The SNL cold open, of course, also addressed what was perhaps the most exciting moment of Wednesday’s debate: the fly that landed on Pence’s head and then remained for about two minutes.
The camera cut from the debate to Jim Carrey’s Joe Biden, who was watching at home with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, played by Heidi Gardner, and chose to teleport to the debate in Utah to help his running mate “save the soul of this nation.” While being transported, he accidentally transformed into the fly.
Carrey’s Biden not only became a fly, but he also turned into Jeff Goldblum, who fans had suggested as the actor to play the insect on SNL. (Goldblum famously starred in 1986’s The Fly, in which he played a scientist who begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after an experiment gone wrong.)
And for SNL‘s parody, a second fly landed on the vice president’s head. Kenan Thompson appeared as a reincarnated Herman Cain, the onetime Republican presidential candidate who died in July, a month after contracting COVID-19. “They invited me to a rally, said everything was fine, Herman. I catch corona, Trump tells me, ‘Everything is fine, Herman.’ The White House doctors check me out, tell me, ‘Everything is fine, Herman.’ Three days later I’m gone. If you’re watching this at home, don’t trust this white devil about that ‘rona,” he said.
SNL is well known for its debate recap skits, which typically appear in the cold opens on the Saturday after a debate. However, next week’s presidential debate between former Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump was canceled after Trump refused to agree to a virtual debate format.
The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates previously said the town hall-style debate scheduled for next Thursday would move to a remote, virtual format due to health concerns in the wake of a coronavirus outbreak in the White House.
Biden’s campaign said that they would have agreed to a virtual format for the debate, but after learning Trump would not participate, the Democratic nominee scheduled a town hall event of its own to air on ABC News.
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