NBC sketch-comedy show “Saturday Night Live” took a jab at President Joe Biden during the show’s most recent “cold open.”
The comedy sketch, which kicked off SNL’s first show following the return from winter break, featured James Austin Johnson as Biden, who blamed the recent record-breaking surge of new COVID-19 cases — driven by the highly-infectious Omicron variant — on the release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
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“Good evening! Hello, my fellow Americans,” he began, adding a dig at Republican efforts to stop the Democrats’ attempts to overhaul federal elections. “As I keep saying every chance I get, we’re in the middle of a cold, dark winter. This winter is so dark, Republicans don’t think it should vote.”
“I know this virus has disrupted our lives,” he continued. “It’s canceled holidays, weddings, quinceaneras, gender-reveal parties, wildfires that started as gender-reveal parties, whatever the hell is happening with Novak Djokovic. I know you’re tired of getting emails from your kids school late at night saying, ‘Ok, come in tomorrow, we’re feeling lucky.’ I know every time a stranger breathes on you, you think, ‘That’s it I’m dead.'”
“Biden” then pivoted to offer a solution — one thing Americans could do that he believed would stop the rapid spread of Omicron: stop seeing “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“America, I am here to tell you there is one simple thing you can do to make this whole virus go away,” he said. “Just stop seeing ‘Spider-Man.'”
The audience laughed as he turned to his visual aids and continued to explain. “Think about it: when did ‘Spider-Man’ come out? December 17th. When did every single person get Omicron? The week after December 17th. Stop seeing ‘Spider-Man’!” he shouted to continued laughter.
Johnson’s “Biden” opened up the floor for questions, then, and one “reporter” asked whether he really believed COVID would stop spreading if people stopped going to movies.
“I didn’t say don’t go to the movies,” he shot back. “I said stop seeing ‘Spider-Man.’ See anything else. I saw the first half-hour of ‘House of Gucci,’ that’s more than enough movie for anyone.”
After being asked for a breakdown of the data, “Biden” replied, “Everyone in America has seen ‘Spider4-Man’ like eight times. Everyone in America also has COVID. Stop seeing ‘Spider-Man’!”
Biden has faced criticism lately as plans to ramp up testing appear to be too little, too late for the record-shattering Omicron-driven surge of new cases. The White House has denied reports that Biden shot down a plan for mass testing prior to the holidays, and even press secretary Jen Psaki appeared to laugh off the idea of sending home-testing kits to the American people. But as tests became harder to come by, the Biden administration eventually decided to make home test kits available through the federal government — they must be requested from the government website, they are limited to four test kits per household, and they are expected to ship 7-12 days after the orders are placed.