Robert Smigel: Why SNL has a tough time mocking Trump and why he wouldn't do "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" in 2020

The Daily Beast

The problem with mocking President Trump is everybody's doing it, Smigel says on The Last Laugh podcast. "I’m not giving Trump any kind of free pass by any stretch of the imagination," he says. "But my problem was that I know he’s easy to make fun of, I do it as much as anybody when I’m doing Triumph. But if you’ve got a platform and all you’re going to make fun of is Donald Trump, then you’re giving cover to a lot of people. And you’re providing cover for a lot of corruption and racism that has existed way before Donald Trump. And I’m not saying that he doesn’t foment it at times and that he’s not a part of it, but it goes way beyond him. And to just make it all about Trump, you’re doing a disservice. It’s not as easy to make fun of lobbyists or the system of protection that’s inherent in our police force, but it’s gotta be done and absolutely with jokes.” As for "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," which starred Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, Smigel says there's no reason to write that animated sketch these days. "I wouldn’t write it now," he says. "To be clear, the engine of that joke was our obsession with sexuality. The premise that I came up with was all about how the villains are obsessed with finding out whether these guys are gay or not, and they can’t get their evil work done because they’re too obsessed, staring at these guys. And the reason I thought it was so funny was because it’s not just homophobes who were obsessed, but everybody. This was just sport and titillation that was accepted and considered non-controversial in any way. It was kind of hilarious to me that these people who were supposedly progressive gave a sh*t at all. The bottom line point of the cartoon was, who gives a shit how they f*ck? It doesn’t matter! It’s sad that this has to be something that people get defined by, but they have to, at this point, because they’re still fighting for basic human rights, still to this day. Thankfully there’s been an incredible amount of progress, but it’s not done."