Most of the time, celebrity cameos don’t make Saturday Night Live a stronger show. It’s often a cheap stunt to cover for uninspired writing. But there are exceptions—and SNL proved that those aren’t all in the past. In the cold open for Season 51’s fourth episode, the show focused on the not-so-local New York City mayoral election and brought on three outsiders to do it.
“Hello and good evening. From NY1, I’m Errol Louis. And I am now officially the least famous person to be impersonated on ‘SNL,’” Kenan Thompson, as Errol Louis, says. “But trust me, it’s uncanny. We’re coming to you live for this, the third, final, and fictional New York City mayoral debate.”
Then the open moved to introduce the candidates: Andrew Cuomo (an excellent Miles Teller, who hosted the episode), Zohran Mamdani (played by the effortlessly charming Ramy Youssef), and Curtis Sliwa (portrayed by brief SNL cast member Shane Gillis).
Don’t Miss
The nine-minute long sketch was filled with gold: “Tonight we’re going to hear from two viable candidates and one good old-fashioned New York nut,” Thompson’s Louis kicks us off.
In a strong showing from all three non-cast celebs, they introduced themselves:
Miles’ Cuomo: “Hello, voters. You all know me. I got us through COVID and then yada yada yada. Honk honk, squeeze, squeeze. Anyway, I’m back. I am a born, bred New Yorker. I love it here. I know this city like the back of a woman’s back. Mamma Mia!”
Youssef’s Mamdani: “Hello, everyone. I’m happy to be here and I’m ready to spend the next hour hearing my opponents pronounce my name in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine. And I know some of you are out there scared of the idea of a young socialist Muslim mayor. So allow me to put you at ease by smiling after every answer in a way that physically hurts my face.”
Gillis’ Sliwa: “I’m thrilled to be here and not getting shot in the back of a yellow cab five times by the Gottis and Gambinos, as I was famously in 1992, 1993, and ’94. But I’m the right choice to be your next mayor. No offense to my opponents, Mr. Cuomo—and I believe I’m saying this right—Zoltar Rob Zombie.”
From there, dozens of quick jokes built off of the already unbelievable theatrics of the real-life mayoral race. It’s hard for anyone to top Sliwa’s real life antics, but Gillis took a great shot.
Youssef and Teller were also genius casting—and a quick appearance from Kam Patterson as Eric Adams proved that he needed to be playing the current NYC mayor all along. Plus, we didn’t get deprived of a James Austin Johnson Trump impression, though honestly, those jokes were the least impressive of the segment.
It was the strongest start to the show of the season—proving that cameos aren’t an automatic curse for SNL.