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Kate McKinnon is flawless as Pennywise on SNL, but it’s a tired joke about Kellyanne Conway

Kate McKinnon is flawless as Pennywise on SNL, but it’s a tired joke about Kellyanne Conway

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This is the third time they’ve done this sketch

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Earlier this year, Kate McKinnon lampooned Kellyanne Conway’s efforts to spin the news while being interviewed on talk shows in a couple of sketches on Saturday Night Live. During last night’s episode, McKinnon reprised her role as President Donald Trump’s counselor with a bit of help from Pennywise the dancing clown from this summer’s blockbuster horror film, It.

The sketch opens with Anderson Cooper (played by Alex Moffat), commenting on a statement from Conway, and when a producer mentions that she’s available for comment, he asks “are we that desperate?” He then leaves the CNN building (clad in a bright yellow rain jacket), and encounters a Conway in a sewer drain, a parody of the opening scenes in It when Georgie meets Pennywise.

The scene has been parodied quite a bit before, ranging from fan-made reenactments to memes about paying one’s student loans. It’s a great bit because it plays into the lengths that people will go to in desperate situations. SNL has McKinnon’s Conway try to entice Cooper off a bunch of outrageous talking points that she quotes designed to grab ratings for the network, reveals that she’s already enticed Rachel Maddow, and turns into Hillary Clinton.

Portraying Conway as a desperate clown going to great lengths to get onto TV is a tired conceit at this point — depicting Conway is desperate to spin public perceptions of the Trump administration is already a low bar to hit, and It has been out in theaters for weeks now. Fortunately, it’s worth watching to see McKinnn’s fantastic depiction of Pennywise.