This week’s Saturday Night Live featured an special election edition of the game show parody What’s That Name?, where contestants struggle to remember the names of people in their lives. Host John Mulaney played a smug contestant who quickly named Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff and Trump investigator Jack Smith, raving to Michael Longfellow’s host about how invested he is in this presidential campaign, which he dubbed “the most important election in American history.”
But the contestant got tripped up when the host brought out a mystery guest: Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, who ran as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 election. Kaine reminded Mulaney’s character that he once called that election the most important of our lifetimes… and yet the contestant can’t remember his name. The host even helped him out, hinting that the guy’s first name is Tim, but the contestant was still stumped. Even multiple choice didn’t help, and Kaine was forced to trudge off the stage unacknowledged.
The real MVP here is Kaine, who was so great at making fun of himself. He recognized where he stands in history at this point, and he didn’t have too much of an ego to refuse to come out for this. There were jokes made about his similarity to Tim Walz, and not just that the two have the same first name. Of course, we also recognize that there was value in Kaine doing this — it does get him into the public eye in a way that he has not been in years.
This was a really smart bit of misdirection on the part of Lorne Michaels and the producers. After all, there were reports out there that Kamala Harris would appear, and that was a great smokescreen to hide another politician turning up. Also, the entire point of the game-show sketch was how nobody remembers Tim Kaine, despite him being a Vice Presidential candidate just eight years ago. Also, he is still a Senator from Virginia!
Even if the rest of the episode flops, we got two fantastic sketches and in the end, who saw that coming? Kaine’s appearance may actually be the best politician cameo ever.
The contestant squirmed even more when the host brought up a social media post he made in 2020 about a dozen Black victims of police violence with the hashtag #RememberTheirNames. But can he still remember their names (besides George Floyd)? No, he cannot. But he can definitely name early 2000s porn stars! Mulaney’s contestant scolded the host for helping usher in “a real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale“… but he didn’t recognize Handmaid’s Tale book author Margaret Atwood standing right next to him as the other contestant. He’s bad with names, guys!
Also, this cameo was not the only great part of the game show, as there was also a great riff in here on Margaret Atwood. Sarah Sherman did a fantastic job in a limited amount of screen time.
After we saw Kaine, there was admittedly a small part of us that was eager to see if there were going to be a lot of other random politicians who showed up after the fact. Yet, we recognize that having a current Vice President turned Presidential candidate and also a one-time VP candidate was a lot.
Press PLAY to watch the sketch below, and give this week’s SNL a grade in our poll.
What’s That Name: Election Edition pic.twitter.com/Or2H0CD2HZ
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