‘SNL’ parodies Fox News trying to explain away blue midterm wave

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Nov. 18, 2018 / 5:59 AM GMT

By Phil Helsel

More fake news about the midterm blues. “Saturday Night Live” took to the airwaves to poke fun at conspiracy theories about voter fraud following the midterms, using a parody of conservative commentator Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show.

The sketch featured Kate McKinnon as Ingraham teasing an upcoming segment about how “celebrities in California are whining about some tiny wildfires, while our heroic president is under constant attack — from rain.”

Cecily Strong played firebrand Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro warning about what McKinnon’s Ingraham called “rampant voter fraud that allowed Democrats to literally steal the election.”

“Some have claimed that suburban women revolted against the Republican Party — but doesn’t it feel more true that all Hispanics voted twice?” McKinnon’s Ingraham said. “You can’t dismiss that idea simply because it isn’t true and sounds insane.”

More “feel facts” designed to pander to the stereotypical Fox News crowd followed, like “Santa is Jesus’s dad,” “blackface is a compliment” and “If the Earth is so warm, then why are my feet cold?”

Strong’s Pirro offered up examples that included one person being able to impersonate many — holding up Eddie Murphy’s “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” — and a “huge increase in what people call stacking, where multiple children will stack on top of each other, under a trench coat and then vote as an adult.”

The sketch also lampooned parody advertisers on the faux-Fox show, including a fashion catheter company, the manufacturer of baptism kits for dogs and a brand of “whites only” eggs — “it’s just egg whites, and it’s just for us.” (A parody of a derided real-life “vape god” segment also made an appearance.)

“SNL” was hosted by Steve Carell, the boss from the hit show “The Office,” who returned to host for the third time.

He started his monologue by trying to talk about the movies he’s been in since his TV role — only to be interrupted by former cast members Ed Helms, Jenna Fischer and Ellie Kemper, who pleaded with Carell to accept a reboot of the program.

“Do you remember the last words that Pam secretly whispered to Michael as she left for Denver?” Fischer, who played Pam in the series, asked.

When Carell responded he did not, Fischer replied: “She said: ‘Steve, don’t be a d–k, do the reboot.”

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The crowd cheered the suggestion, and Carell brought the actors on stage. But fans who expected a new series were left wanting: He instead said “I am proud to announce, officially, that … we have a great show tonight!” (The band did play the theme song from the show).

Carell hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2005 and 2008. The musical guest Saturday was Ella Mai.