After a tough and somewhat tense start to SNL, the long-running sketch comedy show finally let its host show off his skills.
Shane Gillis acted as the host for Saturday Night Live’s most recent episode (after he was “canceled” from the cast four years ago), and the comedian’s material wasn’t exactly matching up with the audience in attendance.
The monologue, which featured Gillis’ typical material, featured a number of awkward moments as the crowd wasn’t sure how to react to some of his jokes. Die-hard fans who tuned into Saturday Night Live just to watch the comedian were likely confused by the SNL audience’s hesitance to laugh.
But after a couple of sketches, you could tell that Gillis finally loosened up, and the show really seemed to hit its stride with some of the pre-recorded skits that aired.
The first was a “Rock Bottom Kings” sketch that made fun of all of the sports gambling sites, and the premise allowed for users to bet on how their degenerate gambling friends would lose it all.
Check it out real quick:
But the skit that everyone is going to be talking about, and honestly the best one of the night, was when SNL and Shane Gillis poked fun at Donald Trump’s new golden signature sneakers, which are selling for $400 bucks a pop (yeah, they’re real, look them up).
The sketch was presented as “the first sneaker movie for white people,” and it featured a regular man who basically turned into Donald Trump, or at least got his “powers” (á la Like Mike) when he put on the shoes.
Shane Gillis’ Donald Trump impersonation easily carried the skit, and one could argue that his impression was better than James Austin Johnson’s (the SNL cast member who also did his Trump impersonation in the skit).
The “White Men Can Trump” idea was a clever way to work in Gillis’ impersonation into the show, and made for a sketch that stood far above the rest that aired during the episode:
