On Monday, Laura Ingraham took a break from spreading COVID-19 misinformation and fear-mongering about cancel culture to try her hand at... comedy, of all things. Apparently miffed by Kate McKinnon’s impression of her during the latest Saturday Night Live cold open, Ingraham did her own impression of McKinnon, and the results were–to put it mildly–cringe-worthy.
McKinnon opened the most recent episode of SNL with an eight-minute spoof of Ingraham’s Fox News show, The Ingraham Angle. “Well, we’re finally done with year one of Biden’s presidency. Can we all admit it’s a disaster?” McKinnon drawls in the sketch, mocking the right-wing host’s propensity for exaggeration. “Inflation’s out of control, gas is at $19 a gallon, and the green M&M has been canceled just for being a whore.”
Needless to say, Ingraham was not amused. Toward the end of her Monday night show, she played several clips from McKinnon’s cold open before launching into an over-the-top, head-bobbing rant that was supposed to mimic the comedian’s impersonation.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Now there’s a reason I like Kate McKinnon,” Ingraham began sarcastically. “I have so much respect for her as a talent. She’s so evenhanded in her political commentary.” She went on to comment on the “low-hanging fruit provided by Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, little Petey B and the Squad on a near daily basis,” as though SNL has never cracked a joke about the president before. Ironically, the chyron accompanying the segment read, “SNL Opens Show With Cringey Impersonation of Laura.”
Switching back to her regular voice, Ingraham then offered to go on Saturday Night Live and show off her Nancy Pelosi impression. Later, Mike Huckabee, former Republican governor of Arkansas, joined Ingraham as a guest to help analyze why the NBC comedy show is not funny.
“Saturday Night Live could be funny, but it isn’t, in part because they don’t seem to have any sense of self awareness that there is another side of the political aisle where the real comedy is going on right now,” Huckabee said. It is, according to Huckabee, people like Ingraham who are proving that conservatives have a sense of humor.
But based on the online response to the segment, she may have to try a little harder. One Twitter user remarked, “Tell me an SNL sketch struck a nerve without telling me an SNL sketch struck a nerve.” Another wrote, “It should come as no surprise that @IngrahamAngle isn’t even funny when doing an impression of an actually funny person like Kate McKinnon.”
Time will tell if the writers over at Saturday Night Live decide to keep the impression inception going with a sketch of McKinnon impersonating Ingraham impersonating McKinnon’s impression of her in this week’s episode.
