Electricity shot through the political press corps on Saturday night when we heard that Kamala Harris had diverted her plane to New York.
Reporters scrambled to pin down the story: On this last weekend before the election, that most guarded of politicians decided to take a risk and swing by 30 Rock for a surprise through-the-looking-glass appearance with her “Saturday Night Live” doppelgänger, Maya Rudolph.
In a cultural and mass media landscape that has been so delineated and fractured and polarized, where people are in their own little bubbles, “S.N.L.” is one of the last venues that speaks to the culture at large when it satirizes politicians.
So I was riveted, wondering if Rudolph and Harris would do their sketch face-to-face.
When I was reporting a Vanity Fair cover story on Tina Fey in October 2008, she was creating a sensation with her Sarah Palin impression. The key to mimicking Palin, Fey told me, was to talk as if she were “lost in a corn maze.”
In that wild political season, Palin agreed to come on the late-night show, as did her running mate, John McCain, creating skits that astounded even Lorne Michaels and the “S.N.L.” cast.
But Fey and Palin merely walked past each other in identical suits in their sketch.
I thought it was a lost opportunity, but Fey was adamant that she didn’t want to do what the legendary “S.N.L.” writer Jim Downey called a “classic sneaker-upper” with Palin. In the end, Palin offered her daughter Bristol as a babysitter for Fey’s 3-year-old daughter, and Fey got her husband’s parents and sister tickets to a Palin rally.
“I just didn’t want to have to do the impression at the same time with her,” Fey told me. “One, it would shine a light on the inaccuracies of the impression, and two, it’s just always — the only word I can think of is ‘sweaty.’”
Donald Trump had clowned around with two of his “S.N.L.” impersonators, Darrell Hammond and Taran Killam, during his monologue when he hosted the show in 2015 (a night that left many cast members torn about whether they were helping Trump). Bernie Sanders once came on to do a skit with his hilarious double, Larry David, and Hillary Clinton did a deft turn as a bartender named Val mocking Trump with her adoring double, Kate McKinnon.
After last night’s show, some viewers pointed out that Trump did a similar through-the-dressing-room-mirror skit with Jimmy Fallon in 2015. And Hillary had a similar line about whether her laugh was annoying in a cameo with Amy Poehler. Whatever. This is comedy on the fly.
Though conservatives never believe it, Lorne Michaels is going for the comedy, not trying to sway the election or hew to liberal values. He thought that Will Ferrell’s fumbling but affectionate impersonation of George W. Bush in 2000 made Bush more lovable and helped sway the election — even though it didn’t jibe with the politics of Ferrell and the rest of the “S.N.L.” cast. But if it helped W., so be it, Michaels said.
Kamala has privately worried about her laugh and was once so nervous at the prospect of having to dine with Washington journalists that she held a pre-dinner rehearsal with her staff pretending to be the journalists. (I can attest that dinner parties with Washington reporters are kind of hellish!)
Given that caution, she seemed nervy just for showing up to do a high-wire comedy routine live on the cusp of the election. The candidate and the comedian wore identical black suits, necklaces, earrings and flag pins.
Self-deprecation always works, and the radiant Kamala came across as appealing. She genuinely seemed to be having fun — a good avatar for her campaign of joy.
It felt like the popular Rudolph was giving the vice president a girl-power comedy benediction. “Take my palm-ala,” she told Kamala. “Kick back in our pajama-las and watch a rom-com-ala.”
And finally, Rudolph sent her off with some good advice for the nerve-racking, nail-biting, white-knuckling, goose-bumping 48 hours to come: “Keep calm-ala and carry on-ala.”
