Kamala Harris and Maya Rudolph on 'Saturday Night Live'. Photo: Screenshot
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared on the Saturday Night Live TV comedy show on Saturday, adding a surprise jolt to the US presidential election just three days before her with showdown with Republican Donald Trump.
Harris portrayed herself, appearing in a mirror opposite the actor who plays her on the show, Maya Rudolph, who was nervously prepared for a campaign speech. Dressed identically in a black suit and pearls, the two traded variations on Harris' first name, saying Americans want to "end the drama-la" in politics "with a cool new stepmom-ala".
"Keep Calm-ala and carry on-ala," they said in unison.
"I don't really laugh like that, do I?" Harris asked, after Rudolph imitated her distinctive chortle.
"A little bit," Rudolph responded.
It was Harris' first time on the show, which has had other presidential candidates over its decades-long run.
Harris' appearance on Saturday Night Live, a late surprise in her race against Trump, follows in the footsteps of past candidates, including Trump himself.
In October 2015, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on the NBC-TV comedy and political satire show as she was preparing to engage in a string of Democratic primaries early the following year.
Clinton, playing a bartender, was told by an SNL cast member that she was "really easy to talk to." Clinton, in character, responded, "That's the first time I've ever heard that" - a dig at her reputation for appearing icy in public.
The following month, the long-running late-night show gave equal time to Trump, who would beat Clinton in the 2016 election, appearing in a sketch looking ahead two years into a White House term.
"I don't have to get specific" about policy, the future Trump said in a riff about his lack of experience in politics and governance.
Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who in real life later landed a high-level White House job during her father's presidency, played his secretary of the interior, saying the Washington Monument was now blanketed in gold-mirrored glass, mocking her father's penchant for opulence.
While the sketch got some laughs, it prompted outrage from Latino activists who protested what they called Trump's racist views on immigration. And then there was former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who appeared on a 40th anniversary SNL show in 2015 at a time when there was speculation that she was mulling a White House run - only to claim on the show that she would consider Trump as her vice presidential running mate.
The fiction failed to become fact, as Palin never joined the presidential race.
SNL separately hosted both Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain in 2008.
- Reuters