Saturday Night Live took aim at the Academy Awards in its cold open.
Marcello Hernández pretended to be Mario Lopez while Heidi Gardner played Maria Menounos or Kit Hoover, joking, “They haven’t told me yet.” The bit saw them interviewing various celebrities, like Chloe Fineman‘s Jamie Lee Curtis and Keenan Thompson‘s Mike Tyson, for Access Hollywood.
They joked Tyson was hired to handle security amid the fallout over last year’s infamous slap between Will Smith and Chris Rock. Thompson, as Tyson, also warned that things like clapping or statues of gold “will set me off.” He also joked that “all the nominees have been given tasers and all the seat fillers have been given guns and [host] Jimmy Kimmel has been given a flame thrower.”
The cold open also took another jab at disgraced representative George Santos, who was played by Bowen Yang. The politician pretended to be Tom Cruise in order to get on the red carpet and insisted, “I’m definitely Thomas Q. Cruise, star of this year’s blockbuster film Top Gun 2: Top Bottom.”
When Lopez called out his lies, Santos came clean but reminded everyone he is in Congress before walking away so he can “be everyone, everywhere all at once.”
Scream VI star Jenna Ortega hosted the show, with musical guest The 1975.
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