Bernie Sanders finally made his appearance on Saturday Night Live. Fans of the Democratic presidential candidate might have been disappointed by Sanders’ short performance, though. His cameo was shorter than Donald Trump’s several months ago, and he got fewer lines than Hillary Clinton had during her October performance.
The first mention of Sanders on the episode did not even include the real Sanders. Instead, the pre-taped sketch, called “Bern Your Enthusiasm” included Larry David playing the part of Sanders. In the sketch, Sanders loses the Iowa caucuses by annoying voters.
Sanders’ first appearance came in a skit where he and David play the part of two men on a ship that is headed for America and gets stuck in a storm. Sanders and David argue over who should get on the lifeboat first. David’s character tries to argue that he’s rich and therefore should get special treatment. Sanders’ character says, “I’m so sick of the 1 percent getting preferential treatment,” a reference to his central campaign message. During the skit, Sanders’ also joked about his Jewish heritage. His character says he is going to change his last name, Sanderswitzky, to something that will not “sound so Jewish” when he gets to America. The sketch ends when everyone on the ship finds out that the ship was not actually sinking. They had simply hit into Ellis Island.
After the sinking ship skit, Sanders made another short appearance as David introduced musical guests, The 1975. When asked how his campaign is going, Sanders responded, “It’s pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
Sanders’ appearance on SNL was played up by this campaign on Twitter. Toward the beginning of the episode, he tweeted out a fundraising request, using a Curb Your Enthusiasm reference: “We need your vacuum pennies. Chip in a few,” said the fundraising tweet. The tweet also included a link where people can donate.