Joe Biden’s Panda Diplomacy Lacks Heat In ‘SNL’s Pre-Thanksgiving Cold Open
deadline.com“Was I the only one who was surprised that the presidents of the two biggest economies in the world met, and everyone’s just like ‘what’s up with the pandas?” asked the Bowen Lang portrayed Tian Tian the panda in tonight’s Saturday Night Live cold open. “There have to be bigger issues, right?” It was a far question, and maybe the highlight of the first few minutes of the show.
Kicking off with another uneven Joe Biden press conference, with Mikey Day as the aged Commander-in-chief, this was not one of the sharper or more cutting cold opens that the NBC late night show has had since its Season 49 premiere on October 14.
Certainly, as geopolitical tensions seem to be well past the boiling point, POTUS’s mini-summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco this past week was realpolitik in action.
Even more so, now that the Middle Kingdom are indicating they may lend more pandas to the US again after the National Zoo’s three giant pandas, Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and cub Xiao Qi Ji were put on a plane back to China earlier this month. “I don’t know anyone in China, I haven’t been back since I was a baby,” Yang’s Tian Tian exclaimed with a concerned Uncle Joe standing nearby. “Now I have to make friends as an adult,” the smirking panda added. “How do I panda express this?
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