During last Saturday’s 50th season premiere, Saturday Night Live aired a skit poking fun at Spirit Halloween, suggesting the seasonal store was a lifeline for struggling communities and filling empty storefronts left by shuttered businesses.
‘Communities are having a hard time. Closed shops. Closed companies. Empty parking spaces. When hard times come, it’s easy to feel like no one cares. But help is on the way,” the narrator says in the SNL sketch. ‘We don’t see a dead-end city. We don’t see an abandoned Kmart. We see a ghost, a Halloween ghost.”
However, the parody also mocked the store’s offerings, claiming that they included “wigs that will give you a rash, single-use fog machines, and costumes of famous characters that were modified just enough to avoid a lawsuit.”
The season group responded to the sketch in an X-post the following Monday, firing back by decrying the sketch comedy’s declining ratings.
Spirit Halloween criticized Saturday Night Live for their sketch that mocked the costume shop business model, calling it an “irrelevant 50-year-old TV show”
The SNL parody also mocked the store’s offerings, claiming that they included “wigs that will give you a rash, single-use fog machines, and costumes of famous characters that were modified just enough to avoid a lawsuit.”
“We’re great at raising things from the dead @nbcsnl,” Spirit Halloween apparently wrote in response to the sketch.
The company shared an image of a costume called “SNL 50: The Anniversary Season,” with “dated references, unknown cast members and declining ratings.”
Spirit Halloween wasn’t the only subject of SNL trolling, as the episode also featured jokes poking fun at Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaigns.
The show, known for its Democratic-leaning stance, has consistently gone easy on the Biden administration and, as expected, reserved its harshest criticism for Donald Trump.
Pictured: Cast member Heidi Gardner
Pictured: SNL’s jokes about the Halloween costume names Spirit Halloween uses to avoid copyright infringement
In a recent skit, it didn’t have to add much, simply reenacting Trump’s controversial comments about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs.
SNL alumna Maya Rudolph returned to the cast as Kamala Harris, portraying her “nice aunt” or “Funt” persona as the Democratic presidential candidate.
“The Funt has been rebooted,” said Harris of Rudolph. ‘2 nice, 2 furious.’
Harris joked that she was campaigning in “Wisconsin-Pennsylv-Georgia,” a playful nod to key swing states that are critical to a Democratic victory.
“I’m so happy to be able to campaign in whatever swing state I’m in, which I’m just going to call Wisconsin-Pennsylv-Georgia, because I’m going to protect your Va-Georgia,” Rudolph said, referring to Harris’ promise to protection of women’s rights to abortion.
“You see, my campaign is like the Sabrina Carpenter song ‘Espresso,’” Rudolph’s Harris joked. ‘The lyrics are vague, but the atmosphere is striking.’
She added: “This election is about progress. You see, Donald Trump is stuck in the past, but it’s like telling my husband Doug when he leaves his phone at the Chili’s, “We’re not going back.”
Jim Gaffigan was then introduced as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and joked, “In Minnesota we have a saying: ‘Mind your damn business.’
He added, “We also have another saying: ‘My nuts froze to the park bench.’
Gaffigan’s Tim Walz boasted about his “NDE… big dad energy” while showing off his Costco suit.
‘It’s personal for me. I love this country. And as a former teacher, I need the money,” he joked.
“I haven’t been this excited since I got 10 percent off a leaf blower at Menards,” Gaffigan’s Walz joked. ‘Can I just say: I have that NDE… Big Dad Energy. See what I did there?’
Rudolph’s Kamala Harris responded, “I get it. I didn’t want it, but I got it,” before introducing her husband.
“Tim isn’t the only white guy here for Harris today,” she teased.
Andy Samberg appeared as Doug Emhoff, Harris’ Jewish husband, who called himself the “Second Gentlemensch” and joked about decorating the White House for Christmas: “The theme is Hanukkah.”
“I’ve heard what the right says about me because I unapologetically support my wife: ‘Oh, he’s a beta, a ladies’ man, a traditional husband, a little spoon.’
‘You know what? If helping Kamala – or Mamala, as we call her – become president means being a little spoon, then go ahead and cut my little ass,” said Emhoff of Samberg.
But the sharpest blows were aimed at James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump. During a rally, Trump noted that the crowd was trying to leave.
“I see you’re trying to leave, but the doors are locked!” Johnson’s Trump exclaimed, before lamenting that he is no longer running against Biden.
‘What I wouldn’t give to have him standing next to me, all old and weak! We had this in the bag, but then they did a switcheroo, replacing Biden with “skubala,” he grumbled.
“They say blaming Democrats for inciting violence is like calling the pot black, but honestly, I didn’t even know the kettle was black until recently. I thought the kettle was Indian. Then it decided to be black,” he said, looking at Harris’ ethnicity.
Johnson’s Trump doubled down on his outlandish claims about immigrants eating pets, saying, “They do crazy things to the dogs, and they let the geese watch… They do a Diddy,” referring to the rapper’s recent arrest.
Fellow cast member Bowen Yang appeared as Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, as Trump staffers rolled away the bulletproof glass as Vance took the stage.
SNL alumna Maya Rudolph rejoined the cast while Kamala Harris brought back her “fun aunt,” aka the “Funt” persona as the Democratic presidential nominee
But the biggest blows were reserved for James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump, who claimed at a rally that he noticed people heading for the exit
‘Just this afternoon, him [Trump] said to me, ‘JD, you are like a son to me, because I don’t want you, and I’m stuck with you.’ People call me a creep, a crazy person, and ask what the hell am I doing here? I’ll tell you what I’m doing: setting this crowd on fire! You guys are great. Let’s talk platform. It’s called Project 2025, and…’
The skit then cut back to the Harris rally, with Dana Carvey playing President Joe Biden. Biden wandered aimlessly around the stage, squinting and confused, as he fumbled his words and began wandering in circles.
‘Many people forget that I am president. Even me!’ Carvey’s Biden joked.
Rudolph’s Harris then thanked “J Biden” for “putting the country first and handing over the reins.”
‘I didn’t want to! They made me,” Carvey’s Biden blurted out, seemingly revealing the truth.
‘I think I did quite well. I have passed more bills than any president in history. Folks, we still have work to do, no joke. I’m serious now. Come on. Guess what, and by the way. The fact is that…’ Carvey’s Biden rambled on, increasingly mixing up his words.
Rudolph’s Harris interjected, “We can put an end to the drama drawer, the trauma drawer, and go relax in our pajamas,” before Biden interrupted again and got uncomfortably close to her.
