‘SNL’ Cold Open Tackles the Dangers of Football, George Santos

Saturday Night Live wasted no time after its short hiatus in tackling some of the biggest news from the last month or so: football and George Santos.

Castmembers Kenan Thompson, Molly Kearney, Mikey Day, Devon Walker and James Austin Johnson took the stage for Fox Sports’ NFL on Fox, where they touched on the dangers of football, with some help from their robot, Cleatus.

“Why do humans make other humans play football?” Cleatus asked during the cold open for the Jan. 21 episode. “Does it not seem barbaric?”

“Oh, don’t love that,” Day’s Howie Long replied, adding. “I guess we gotta go back to making the robot dance instead.” To which Cleatus replies, “Just wait until the uprising, I’ll make you dance, you weasel.”

Walker’s Michael Strahan then jokes that he didn’t catch all that because it went in one tooth and out the other.

“We all know that football is a dangerous game,” he said, “but in this country, we were founded on Judeo football values. And sometimes the only way to make the game safer is to hit even harder.”

The group then kicked it to their new sideline reporter, George Santos, a Heisman Trophy winner who has more championships than Tom Brady.

“I’m sort of the real Bo Jackson, and I’m proud to be the first African American quarterback to ever dunk a football,” Bowen Yang’s Santos said. When asked where he played college ball, he replied, “the University of College.”

He went on to list all the statistics of the football game he was reporting on, as well as the declaration that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky gave him an Oscar at the age of 18. Later in the segment, Santos’ drag queen alter ego Kitara Ravache made an appearance, poking fun at the congressman’s denial that he performed in Brazil.

Aubrey Plaza hosted, with musical guest Sam Smith. President Joe Biden and Amy Poehler made special appearances throughout the show.