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Melissa McCarthy channeled Sean Spicer to yell at the press on SNL

Melissa McCarthy channeled Sean Spicer to yell at the press on SNL

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‘I’m here to swallow gum and take names!’

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Saturday Night Live came back last night after a short break, with plenty of material to chew through during the first couple of weeks of President Donald Trump’s administration. While the cold open focused on Trump’s phone calls this week to Australia and Mexico’s respective heads of state, it was Melissa McCarthy who stole the show with her portrayal of White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

McCarthy channeled that first abrupt press conference the day after the inauguration: she yelled and berated the assembled reporters around a mouth full of gum, touted a whole litany of alternative facts, accidentally spelled out a password, and sprayed reporters with a Super Soaker.

Low-hanging fruit

As with many of the SNL sketches throughout last fall’s presidential campaign, the last two weeks have provided the lowest of the low-hanging fruit for comedians to aggressively parody: Spicer’s debut before the White House Press Corp was outlandish in and of itself. McCarthy’s sketch was a nice hit out of the park for the show, because, apart from being a stellar physical comedian, she didn’t have to do much more than wardrobe.

There’s been no comment from President Trump or Press Secretary Spicer via Twitter. We’ll update this post if we hear more.