WaPo’s Tom Shales:
last night’s 30-minute “SNL” seemed to have 90 minutes of sure-fire comedy crammed into it, the regulars drawing energy from their own luster. The debate spoof featured Fred Armisen as Obama, delivering answers in a dispassionate, monotonous singsong staccato, and Hammond as McCain, flashing abrupt and inappropriate grins, boasting obsessively about his maverick status in the Republican Party, and referring to Obama with such demeaning terms as “this character here,” “Junior over there” and “pee-pants over here.”
Those phrases were inspired by McCain’s strange use of “that one” to refer to Obama at one point in Tuesday night’s “town-hall” debate appearance.
Former “SNL” cast member Chris Parnell returned to do his impeccable impedimentary impression of NBC anchor emeritus Tom Brokaw — who, as in the real debate, was insatiably fixated on time limits for candidate answers as if this were a sacred charge he must dispatch with religious fidelity. Armisen’s Obama or Hammond’s McCain would start to answer a question and Parnell as Brokaw would shout, “Your time is up!” — interrupting them and hurrying on to the next question.
As the debate began, “Brokaw” explained that undecided voters who made up the studio audience had proposed a long list of questions from which, Brokaw said, “I have chosen the eight least interesting.”
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