It’s been a long, long time since “SNL” did any jokes about the president of the United States. The 2020 Christmas episode, in fact. But that looks likely to change March 27 when Maya Rudolph will return as host after the show takes almost the entire month of March off.
Rudolph will be joined by musical guest Jack Harlow, who is appearing on “SNL” for the very first time.
It’s only the second time as host for Rudolph, who made her hosting debut in 2012. She was a regular cast member from 2000-2007 and has of course made multiple appearance since, most recently in her recurring role as Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rudolph appeared in that role during the first 6 episodes of the current season of “SNL,” which aired in October and early November as the 2020 election was under way. She made another appearance in the Christmas episode for a very brief cameo, but since the show returned from its winter break in mid-January, it hasn’t brought her back to play Harris.
That feels weird, because at this point in 2017, Alec Baldwin had already appeared twice as Donald Trump, including when he hosted the Feb. 11, 2017 episode, less than 3 weeks after Trump was sworn in. In fact, Baldwin showed up to play Trump a total of 8 episodes during the 2017 portion of the 2016-2017 season.
But that aside, the main takeaway for “SNL” fans is that we still don’t know for sure who, if anyone, is going to play Joe Biden during the next for years the way Baldwin did for Trump. Jim Carrey played Biden last fall, but his performance wasn’t that well-received, which might be why he stepped down, abruptly, hours before the aforementioned Christmas episode.
That night, Alex Moffat ended up playing Biden very briefly and it was assumed that he would be the new Biden going forward, but since the show hasn’t done any Biden/Harris sketches since then, we don’t really know. What we do know, however, is that Rudolph is always delightful, including when she plays Vice President Harris, so fans should have a lot of fun when “SNL” returns.