Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl

SNL Cold Open Intros Amy Poehler's Pam Bondi, Tina Fey's Kristi Noem

Tonight's SNL Cold Open brought us Amy Poehler's take on AG Pam Bondi and a nearly unrecognizable Tina Fey's take on DHS's Kristi Noem.

NBC's Saturday Night Live rolled on tonight with the second episode of Season 51, but this wasn't just any episode. While last season may have been the anniversary season, tonight is the night that actually marks the 50th anniversary of SNL. With the amazing Amy Poehler (SNL Icon, Parks and Recreation) hosting and Role Model as the musical guest, what did we get tonight? How about Poehler as Attorney General Pam Bondi and a nearly unrecognizable Tina Fey as Department of Homeland Security/ICE boss head Kristi Noem? The cold open began as a mocking of Bondi's recent Senate testimony, where Bondi spent more time taking cheap shots and trying to sell one-liners than actually answering questions. "Before I don't answer, I'd like to insult you personally," Poehler's Bondi offers up as things get underway, warning the committee that she had a number of "roast-style burns" written down for her and she wasn't afraid to use them.

But with all due respect to the rest of the cast (including Ashley Padilla, Andrew Dismukes, and James Austin Johnson), the sketch blew up in a big way when Fey reunited on-screen with Poehler for some great shots at Noem (like how she found Old Yeller to have a happy ending) – including Noem working up an impromptu ad for ICE. But our biggest personal takeaway was how it took a few minutes to be able to tell that it was Fey.

During the 77th Emmy Awards red carpet, SNL EP Lorne Michaels spoke with Entertainment Tonight's Nischelle Turner about the recent changes. "The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations, and it's how it revives itself," Michaels explained. "It's always hard when people leave, but there's a time for that, and our audience has always stayed relatively young, and more so now with TikTok," Michaels added, pointing to how SNL has had a long tradition of cast changes, and that while it can be painful, it's also one of the main reasons why the long-running late-night sketch comedy series has lasted as long as it has. "Change is good. The people we're bringing in, I'm really excited about." You can check out the exchange in the video above, where Michaels also discusses what it was like working on SNL50 for two years.

NBC's Saturday Night Live Season 51 cast includes Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Marcello Hernandez, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang, along with current featured players Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline. Joining them are newcomers Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, and Veronika Slowikowska.

New writers for this season include actor-writer Jack Bensinger (Rap World), stand-up comedian Jo Sunday (Just for Laughs), comic Maddie Wiener (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), actor and writer Rachel Pegram (Harley Quinn), writer-comedian Claire McFadden (Second City), Maxwell Gay (The Harvard Lampoon), and Tucker Flodman (The Harvard Lampoon).

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