Dana Carvey is always one to improvise, and as he told David Spade on their “Superfly” podcast, last week’s “Saturday Night Live” cold open just happened to provide the perfect opportunity for unplanned comedic gold. Toward the end of the sketch, Carvey as Joe Biden smashed his ice cream cone into the face of Maya Rudolph (as Kamala Harris) — something they hadn’t rehearsed.
“The ice cream cone was not planned,” Carvey began. “I asked the prop master to give me an ice cream just to hold for the dress show. And then the air show, she gave me a much bigger [one], and I didn’t ask her.”
During the live show, he continued, “I was kind of gesturing. I thought, ‘Here’s ice cream, big gob, here’s Maya’s face.’ And I didn’t want to hurt her, but I just … I thought of it and did it within two seconds.”
The cold open in question featured a stressed Democratic candidate Harris and reassuring husband Doug Emhoff, as played by Andy Samberg. The pair were watching the vicd presidential debate from home, and Rudolph’s Harris told her husband she was nervous about the event. Once it was finished, Samberg’s Emhoff suggested the pair watch “something less stressful, like the Menendez Brothers show.”
Rudolph’s Harris rebuffed the suggestion and made her own: that they rewatch her debate with Donald Trump.
Carvey as Biden joined Rudolph and Samberg on the couch, giving an ode to the real president’s love of the sweet vanilla treat by eating from his own ice cream cone as he asked, “Who the hell was Obama’s VP? Nobody knows.” After he plopped the ice cream straight into Rudolph’s face, he added, “You’re gonna be a great president, and when you’re done it’ll be my turn. Biden 2028!”
You can watch the exchange between Carvey and Spade in the video above, along with the episode’s guest host Nate Bargatze joining the “SNL” stars past to go through what made some of his own sketches on the program work. You can also watch the presidential sketch itself here:
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