NBC’s decision to have Donald Trump host Saturday Night Live led to critical scorn and huge (“yooge”) ratings. The most interesting consequence of the decision, however, is that NBC now has to offer the rest of the presidential candidates the same 12 minutes and five seconds of free air time it gave Trump on the show, because NBC is a broadcast network and is subject to equal time requirements. This, one imagines, has to be killing Trump, because you know in hindsight he’d much rather have 12 uninterrupted minutes to rant into a camera on network television than the bits and pieces of C+ sketch work he had with SNL. Taking control of the airwaves is the dream of every blowhard. And supervillain. Which, I mean…
But anyway! The candidates who accept NBC’s offer will probably use it for something boring like speeches about policy or testimonials from their folksiest supporters, but this whole “12 minutes of free airtime” thing got us thinking about what we would do with such an opportunity. Here are a few of our ideas.
– Explain the plot of all seven Fast & Furious films, including the chronological two-step in the series where Tokyo Drift — the third movie — actually takes place between Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7.
– Give an in-depth, blow-by-blow explanation of the dream you had the night before, knowing that no one anywhere cares and people are changing the channel in droves, but doing it anyway just to punish NBC for letting Trump host SNL.
– Buy a bunch of stuff at the grocery store and then spend 12 minutes blowing everything up one item at a time.
– Buy a bunch of stuff at the grocery store and then blow it up all at once in super, super slow motion.
– Perform a karaoke version of “November Rain” where you enthusiastically air guitar all of Slash’s parts, and then use the remaining three minutes to discuss the guy who jumped through the wedding cake in the video.
– Livestream a pot of water over a flame to prove that a watched pot does in fact boil.
– 11 minutes 45 seconds of ranting about economic inequality, interspersed throughout with 15 seconds of subliminal nudity.
– Yell about ABC canceling Happy Endings after bouncing it around the schedule and never giving it a fair shot, and maybe get so upset you start crying a little.
– Supercut of dads doing dad stuff, set to dad music.
– Act out a scene from a screenplay titled Loose Cannon you wrote one night after drinking four glasses of wine with dinner, starring yourself as Detective Jax Cannon, a renegade cop who is forced to turn in his badge and gun after he stormed the warehouse of notorious crime boss Victor St. Aspen without a warrant, and edit it together so you’re also playing the chief who knows Cannon is a good cop who gets results, but suspends him anyway because the mayor is breathing down his neck about all the property damage.
– Act out a scene from later in the screenplay where St. Aspen has captured Cannon and explains his whole evil plan to him and then leaves him tied up under the supervision of two low-level lackies while Cannon yells “You’ll never get away with this!,” and use a chunk of your campaign funds to hire Jeremy Irons to play Victor St. Aspen.
– Slideshow of pictures of Joe Biden eating ice cream.
– Puppy races!
– Explain that maybe everyone jumped to “HELL YEAH, I’D KILL A BABY” pretty quickly during the whole conversation about time machines and Baby Hitler, considering you could have also opted to, like, drop him off 5,000 years in the future with a loving family who could teach him right from wrong and raise him to be a productive member of society.
– Explain all the other things you would do if you had a time machine.
– Show an extended, big-budget, unnecessarily cruel attack ad directed at selected people who have wronged you over the course of your life.
– Lower a basketball rim to 8.5 feet and do a crapton of sick dunks.
That feels like a good start. Feel free to chime in with your ideas. There are no wrong answers!
(There are definitely wrong answers.)
