Back in the day, Senator Al Franken was mugging for the camera and entertaining viewers as a regular cast member of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. He created some memorable characters, including “Stuart Smalley” — the cardigan-wearing, effeminate self-help guru that Franken created to parody the New Age movement.
Now, Franken has come full circle and become the target of the show’s “Weekend Update” segment.
The co-anchors of the “Saturday Night Live” weekly news sketch, “Weekend Update,” didn’t hesitate to mock Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., a former performer on the show, who is facing claims that he groped and kissed a woman without her consent about a decade ago.
“Thursday is Thanksgiving, and there is so much to be thankful for this year, unless you’re a human woman,” said Colin Jost, appearing besides co-anchor Michael Che. Jost appeared to be calling attention to not just the Franken controversy, but others as well, including, sex assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and Alabama Republican Roy Moore.
Jost took note of Franken’s seemingly juvenile behavior in the photo.
“Now I know this photo looks bad, but remember: It also is bad. And sure this was taken before Franken ran for public office but it was also take after he was a sophomore in high school,” Jost said. “It’s pretty hard to be like, “Oh, c’mon he didn’t know any better, he was only 55.'”
Jost also touched on the kiss, which Tweeden said Franken forced on her as part of a rehearsal for a comedy sketch for the troops.
“C’mon man, didn’t the troops in Afghanistan have it hard enough without having to sit through sketch comedy. I mean people can barely stay up to watch sketches after ‘Weekend Update,'” Jost quipped.
Che opened up his portion of the segment also talking about Franken, calling attention to how President Trump was quick to call out Franken, but not Moore, “who’s accused of way worse, by the way.”
Should we have expected more? With so many politicians and celebrities being accused of sexual harassment, probably not. Certainly SNL has been more vicious in attacking conservatives than liberals and while they didn’t exactly go easy on Franken, we all know it could have been a lot worse.
It appears that Franken has sufficient support from the liberal establishment to survive — much like Moore, who also has the support of the Alabama conservative establishment. It’s probably not the way it should be, but for whatever reason, that’s the way it is now.
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