'SNL' Takes on Shutdown Through Gravity

It is a surprise to literally nobody that the writers and cast of Saturday Night Live are milking the U.S. government shutdown for all it's worth. And it's worth a lot, so that's saying something. It was also just a matter of when (as opposed to if) they'd do a sketch revolving around box office mega-hit Gravity. The options are endless, basically, and so last night's SNL combined the glory (mostly tragedy) of both Gravity and the shutdown for some good comedy.

"Yello?" Kenan Thompson as a NASA janitor says to the stranded astronauts (Cecily Strong and Taran Killam) phoning into Houston mission control for help. "Uhh, mission control's not here right now but can I take a message?" "What do you mean they're not here?!" "Well, this is awkward, but the government has shut down."

Turns out Thompson's janitor is the only essential employee in the place. Message-taking comedy meeting the zeitgeist of the Gravity success (and the characters' banter), as well as some nice jabs at the fact that America is still shut down? Classic SNL, made even more classic by Kate McKinnon's drop-in as another janitor with a thing for Deep Space Nine.

Image: NBC