Saturday Night Live: Ron DeSantis finally makes his debut in a meta cold open
By Matt Moore
Saturday Night Live‘s parody of the Republican debate unveiled the sketch show’s version of Ron DeSantis. And in a meta moment, SNL acknowledged that DeSantis doesn’t have much of a future.
DeSantis has been on the campaign trail for president since May, but his plans were obvious well before that date. Still, Saturday Night Live didn’t include DeSantis in any cold opens or political sketches.
That changed on Saturday night as season 49 finally introduced SNL’s Ron DeSantis. Writer and Please Don’t Destroy member John Higgins was given the honor.
Higgins wasn’t given much to do in the sketch, which was by design. James Austin Johnson crashed the debate as Donald Trump to share some thoughts on the candidate. That included a meta moment as Trump called out SNL for using a writer to play “Meatball Ron.”
“Look who they got playing Meatball Ron,” Johnson said as Trump. “One of the Destroy Boys. Ron’s watching at home like ‘who the hell is that?’ Poor Ron DeSantis, even SNL doesn’t think he has a chance. If they did, it’d be like Paul Rudd or something in there, right?”
Saturday Night Live has its Ron DeSantis, but probably not for long
There hasn’t been an obvious choice to play DeSantis among the Saturday Night Live cast in the past two seasons. A celebrity cameo seemed likely as the show went on without an in-house version of the Florida governor.
John Higgins seemed like a longshot, especially since he rarely appears outside of Please Don’t Destroy sketches. But he followed in the footsteps of writers like Colin Jost and Michael Che who have been asked to step in for a political parody.
But even though DeSantis appears dedicated to staying in the race, his SNL character likely doesn’t have a bright future. Saturday Night Live‘s meta cold open made it clear that DeSantis isn’t worth their time. Trump, and Johnson’s version of him, will always be the bigger draw.