If there is anything in television that amounts to a tradition, it is “Saturday Night Live,” a program older than any member of its current cast, and one of the traditions within that tradition is the topical cold open, in which cast members play off of some newsworthy, typically political event. Indeed, one way to watch the news is to pick out likely candidates for next Saturday’s satire.
This is the week of the Democratic National Convention, which was to see former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris officially confirmed as running mates. So Maya Rudolph will be working when “SNL” returns from hiatus this fall.
When there are too many parts to go around, or no one in the cast seems to fit the bill, or a new character in the news seems like a good occasion to call in a ringer, “SNL” will reach out to former cast members or its A-list auxiliary of Friends of the Show. It was obvious that Tina Fey would come back to the show to play Sarah Palin, inevitable that Larry David would take the short walk from being Larry David to playing Bernie Sanders. Rudolph, who left the show in 2007 and has returned as host or guest semi-regularly since, was called back last fall to play Harris, whom she does resemble a little, when the senator was running for the presidential nomination. As soon as Harris was announced as the vice presidential pick, Rudolph began trending on Twitter.
“SNL” impersonations have run the gamut from uncanny to … Chevy Chase, whose Gerald Ford was simply Chevy Chase plus slapstick: “This is not a good impression of Gerald Ford, but Rich Little won’t work for scale,” read one title card. But even when the impressions are good, the humor has focused more on mannerisms and public image than on policy; they take an idea and run with it, over and over again.