The presence of White House hopeful and noted yukmeister Donald Trump was uncomfortably inescapable on last night’s edition of Saturday Night Live, but the man himself was given a pretty light workday. How light? The Donald scored a meager 12 minutes of screen time as SNL host.
Variety did the math and tallied the total amount of time when a certain brand of orangeness was visible on TV and between Trump’s night of Larry David banter and “Hotline Bling” parody added up to twelve minutes on the show. If memory serves, about two of those minutes were spent on a gag where Kenan Thompson plays Toots Hibbert. It was an odd night.
Trump’s twelve minutes on the broadcast is way below the amount of time other hosts have put in. Miley Cyrus was onscreen for 21-22 minutes during her season premiere hosting gig and Amy Schumer scored 25-26 minutes on the show the following week. But the crazy part? The Trump appearance gave the show its highest ratings in years according to Deadline:
The Presidential candidate’s highly publicized, controversial and met-with-mixed reactions hosting gig on the light-night show averaged a 6.6 rating in the metered-market households and a 2.7 in adults 18-49 in the local people meters with musical guest Sia, easily season highs in both categories.
Judging by the reviews that have tumbled out for last night’s episode, twelve minutes of Trump was too much of a spotlight for the GOP contender. The AV Club gave the show a big ol’ F, Vox pegged the program as boring and Variety noted “most of the sketches involving Trump were weak, timid or predictable.” Y’know, the sort of reviews that make Steve Forbes look like a John Goodman tier host in comparison.
(Via Variety)
