'Saturday Night Live' #TBT: Queen Gwen
When Tiffany Haddish takes the stage at Studio 8H to host Saturday Night Live for the first time, she’ll join a very short list of black women who’ve emceed the late night sketch show. One of her predecessors is also her co-star from the hit comedy Girls Trip — Queen Latifah.
Latifah has hosted the show twice, in 2004 and in 2008. This throwback clip is from the latter, during the heated presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain. Latifah plays the late journalist Gwen Ifill, who is moderating the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
The sketch starts by immediately poking fun of Ifill’s close ties to Obama, having just released a book titled The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
“As moderator, I will not ask any follow-up questions beyond ‘Do you agree?’ or ‘Your response?’ so as not to appear biased for Barack Obama, in light of my new book,” Latifah’s Ifill states.
And then she lays down some guidelines that lowered the bar for Palin, who was widely perceived as, uh, less than bright.
“Due to the historically low expectations for Governor Palin, were she simply to do an adequate job tonight and at no point cry, faint, run out of the building, or vomit, you should consider the debate a tie,” Ifill says cheerfully.
With the current state of the country, it seems likely that Haddish will also participate in at least one political sketch. Perhaps she can call up her co-star for some advice!
Haddish hosts SNL with musical guest Taylor Swift this Saturday at 11:30 p.m. on NBC.
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