DISCLAIMER: This article was first published in February 2025
Throughout its 50-year history, Saturday Night Live has done a great deal of political humor, including memorable impersonations of just about every president and presidential candidate. The sketches haven’t always driven that far into incisive political satire, but a sketch did on one occasion in 2016.
The sketch was called “Black Jeopardy,” it has since become a recurring sketch on the show. It’s a parody of the popular game show in which the host (Kenan Thompson) and the guests are typically Black and discuss Black topics. On the 2016 version of the sketch, which aired a couple of weeks before the presidential election, Tom Hanks appeared as a contestant as “Doug,” a Southern-accented white man in a MAGA hat who competed against two Black contestants.
The sketch’s joke, which was widely praised at the time by people across the political spectrum, was that urban Black people and white rural MAGA voters have more in common than you would think. However, it does include a moment when Thompson approaches “Doug” to shake his hand, and Hanks backs up as if he’s being robbed before catching himself and shaking the host’s hand.
On Sunday night, NBC aired its Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary special; it reprised the “Black Jeopardy” concept, with Hanks reappearing halfway through the sketch, again in costume as the Doug character. Doug answers a question correctly, commenting on how more people should attend church. Then, the sketch repeats the moment from the 2016 version when Thompson goes over to shake Doug’s hand, and Doug puts his hands up before shaking Thompson’s hand.
Tom Hanks went on SNL dressed like a slob mocking millions of Trump supporters – portraying them as dumb, racist, rednecks.
Keep it up libs. You’ll never win another election again. pic.twitter.com/MigX4rE0Sa
— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) February 17, 2025
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In reaction to this, a lot of MAGA-adjacent people, either misremembering the 2016 sketch and the point it was trying to make or not having seen it at all, responded in anger on social media, believing Hanks was there to mock them:
Hollywood actor Tom Hanks appears on SNL as a racist Trump supporter while wearing a MAGA hat, and hesitating to shake a black man’s hand.
They’re still playing the same card. It’s honestly tiresome. pic.twitter.com/eveojEbrA9
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) February 17, 2025
For its 50th anniversary special, SNL had Tom Hanks play a racist Trump supporter afraid to shake a black man’s hand. Fun fact: Trump’s 2024 election win was the LEAST racially divisive American election since 1964. pic.twitter.com/0gdocaaktH
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 17, 2025
After a landslide election, the left, SNL, and Tom Hanks believe the best idea is to portray Trump supporters as ignorant bigots.
Are they not aware that this is the behavior that cost them the election in the first place? pic.twitter.com/3G5xiSrrnT
— Mad Bull America (@america_mad) February 17, 2025
A lot of the reactions, going into even uglier territory, referenced baseless rumors, long a staple of QAnon, that Hanks is either a pedophile or an associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Later in the night, Hanks returned to the stage to introduce a montage of SNL moments from throughout the years that “have aged horribly,” whether “ethnic wigs,” “use of racial slurs,” or appearances by the likes of Diddy, Jared Fogle, and R. Kelly.
SNL did an In Memoriam section for all of their problematic sketches. pic.twitter.com/4ApEGGtlvx
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 17, 2025
Photo courtesy of X screenshot.
