Bill Burr Completely Missed the Moment on Last Night’s ‘SNL’

It could have been a defining career moment for Bill Burr. After consecutive elections in which SNL gave Dave Chappelle the opportunity to deliver America’s definitive comedy reaction to the results, it turned to Burr to helm the 2024 ship. Given that the outcome was unexpected — not Trump’s victory, necessarily, but its decisiveness — it was a chance for Burr to speak truth to power. Please, Bill, put this in some kind of comedy perspective! Make it make sense!

Instead, Burr said, “Nah, not interested.” Burr historically shoots from the hip, armed with jokes that offend both sides while shining a light on some essential truth. Instead, he decided to sidestep. “Nice to be here on such a fun week,” he grinned as the audience waited for incisive observations. “I know, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t watch politics, so we’re going to keep it light.”

Keep it light? This week? But that’s what Burr set out to do, launching into a bit about crazy airline passengers. Have you heard the one about the disgusting barefoot cowboy who sat next to Burr on a recent flight? I almost expected him to continue with jokes about lousy airline food. 

It wasn’t what the audience — live or watching at home — was expecting. Finally, Burr relented. Fine, he’d talk about the election. But his main take wasn’t exceptionally insightful: Female candidates need to put the pantsuits back in the closet and “whore it up” a little bit. C’mon, gals, you know how to get a free drink: “Just tease him a little bit. Make a farmer feel like he’s got a shot. Swing a state over a little bit.”

I’m not looking to Bill Burr for some progressive take, but his main conclusion about the election was that Kamala Harris didn’t show enough cleavage? Chappelle comes with his own baggage to check, but I’m pretty sure he would have done better than that.

Did Burr have sharper insights waiting in his back pocket? Nope. His only other timely observation was that election season goes on too long — you think? — before wrapping up with a bit about Shaquille O’Neal’s TV commercials for printer ink.  

In 1992, Jerry Seinfeld did a game show sketch about lame comedians. He runs through Jeopardy!-style categories of the hackiest joke topics, and two of the first three are “Airplanes” and “Commercials.” Thirty years later, those were the very subjects with which Burr opened and closed his election week monologue. 

I don’t think it was too much to ask for Burr to do better when the whole country was waiting to hear what he had to say.