After a week in which the Golden Globe Awards were given out and the Academy Award nominations were announced, why can’t the president of the United States bestow a few trophies of his own?
This week’s broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” began with its own awards-show parody, the first annual Trumps, which, as an announcer explained, were “the awards honoring the best in being, or succumbing to, President Trump.”
The ceremony was hosted by James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as the president. He told the audience, “After that lady whose name I already forget gave me her Nobel Prize, I thought, ‘I need more awards. And after what all my little freaks and psychos in I.C.E. have been doing, I need more distractions.’”
Johnson added that while he might have otherwise led the crowd in a round of applause, “my doctors say if I clap, both my dead purple hands will explode with blood — it’s probably nothing to worry about.”
With the help of Jeremy Culhane as Vice President JD Vance, Johnson introduced the nominees in the first category, “Best Pictures (of Me)” — all photos that featured Trump in some way. The finalists were “Staring into the distance while man has medical emergency next to him”; “Molesting flag”; “Redacted Epstein files”; and, finally, the winner, “Receiving another fake award that he made FIFA invent to give to himself.”
Accepting the award on his own behalf, Johnson said, “I love me, I really love me. I have so few people to thank. Myself and of course the big man upstairs, which is what I call my brain tumor.”
He added, “There is so much horrible stuff going on in our country and the world right now. But I promise you — I’m just getting started.”
Marcello Hernández, playing President Javier Milei of Argentina, introduced the best foreign-language film category, with Johnson once again claiming the prize after the card in the envelope designated “nada” as the winner. “I’m taking this award, I’m taking Greenland, and I’m taking Zootopia,” he said.
Sarah Sherman (as the Aunt Gladys character from “Weapons”) and Andrew Dismukes (as the White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller) helped set up the best kiss category: essentially an award for sycophancy that was won by Ashley Padilla (as the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem), and once again claimed by Johnson.
“Ima let you finish,” Johnson told her as he swiped the trophy, “but Trump had one of the best videos of all time.”
Mike Myers, the “S.N.L.” alumnus, returned to play Elon Musk and introduce an award for lifetime achievement in comedy.
“I’m so emotionless to be here,” Myers said, adding that it hadn’t entirely been a year of laughs: “There are a few things we had to say goodbye to because we destroyed them,” he said.
While Veronika Slowikowska (as Carrie Underwood) and Tommy Brennan (as the construction worker from the Village People) sang a mournful cover of the theme song to “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” the screen paid tribute to the departed — a roster that included the White House’s East Wing, civil rights and checks and balances.
Movie merchandise of the week
With help from this week’s host, Teyana Taylor, a newly minted Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee for “One Battle After Another,” “S.N.L.” paid tribute to that highly decorated Paul Thomas Anderson film — with an advertisement for toys. This fake commercial imagines an entire line of action figures inspired by the characters of “One Battle After Another,” as well as a 50-piece playset based on the film’s climactic car chase. It’s really just an opportunity to watch some real-life kids recite and re-enact some of the movie’s most inappropriate scenes and to wish there really was a Mattel toy line based on Anderson’s films. (And stick around for a young actor who does a pretty decent impression of Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood.”)
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on President Trump’s first year back in office and protests against I.C.E. officers.
Jost began:
During a press conference celebrating his first year in office, President Trump said that God was very proud of the job he’s doing as president. Trump added that God was probably looking up at us right now, smiling from horn to hoof. Also remember when President Trump straight up told us he was going to hell? [He played a clip of Trump telling reporters, “I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound.”] But he thinks that after this week, God is back on board.
Che continued:
Vice President JD Vance criticized protesters confronting I.C.E. officers, saying they should instead write an op-ed or argue about it on social media. You know, just like these young scholars did on Jan. 6.
Jost also joked about President Trump’s Board of Peace organization:
President Trump has been inviting world leaders to join his Board of Peace or be crushed by his Council of Destruction. Trump’s Board of Peace consists of countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. Which is like if “Law & Order: SVU” starred Diddy.
After-hours topicality of the week
Though “S.N.L.” steered clear of some of the week’s most fraught news events, like the fatal shooting on Saturday of a Minneapolis man by Border Patrol agents, the show took a turn back into topical territory near the end of the night. On a satirical round table show hosted by Taylor, journalists played by Mikey Day and Chloe Fineman reflected on recent developments that they declared were not representative of the United States and its values, while Taylor and a panelist played by Kenan Thompson, demonstrated, in their own not-so-subtle way, that perhaps they disagreed.
Discussing conflicts between I.C.E. officers and civilians, Day said, “You’ve got federal officers roaming the streets, just pulling people out of their cars based on how they look. This just doesn’t happen in America.”
“Hmmmm,” was all that Taylor and Thompson had to say in response.
Fineman, who addressed Trump’s pursuit of Greenland, said, “Donald Trump may want to just take someone else’s land through greed and aggression, but the rest of us don’t. We’re America. This is not who we are.”
A cameraman played by Kam Patterson replied, “Hmmmm.”
Why didn’t this sketch air until around 12:50 a.m. when the show was nearly over and we were starting to get sleepy?
Hmmmm.
Dave Itzkoff is a former Times culture reporter.
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