For the first Saturday Night Live after the presidential election, the showrunners turned over the opening monologue to comedian Dave Chappelle … and got out of the way.
Chappelle went for a full 16 minutes to start the show. With a cigarette lit, he ran through jokes on Donald Trump, COVID-19, the election, and more. Chappelle has been doing outdoor, hometown comedy shows in Ohio this summer, and you could tell that some of the jokes he’d been working out there.
There were also some jokes that you could tell weren’t quite there — some were offensive, and some were just straight up not fully formed jokes yet. Not everything worked for me, but it’s wild to see a comedian working out his material with the whole country watching.
Four years ago, Chappelle was the man who took the mic when Donald Trump had been elected. This time, he closed with a message of reconciliation … and an ask for people to not turn on each other despite their fears.
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