Mike Myers Returns to ‘SNL’ With Impression That Dana Carvey Did Better

It’s not the first time Mike Myers has swiped an impression from Dana Carvey.

Myers’ Austin Powers baddie Dr. Evil was a stolen version of — er, a loving homage to? — Carvey’s impression of Lorne Michaels, complete with pinkie finger extended to the corner of his malevolent grin. The unauthorized copy caused the two Wayne’s World stars to be estranged for years, though all comics will reconcile if they get enough cash from Uber Eats. 

So it wasn’t a complete surprise when Myers, returning to SNL for the first time since 2015, snuck into Saturday night’s cold open to appear as Elon Musk, a character that Carvey performed in another sketch less than 10 episodes ago. Carvey gets the flu, can’t travel for SNL field trips and this is how his old buddy Myers treats him?

Myers is an all-time SNL great so it’s a bummer that his return to the show couldn’t have been inspired. He latches on to a few of Musk’s idiosyncratic mannerisms but the attempt at a South African accent is a swing-and-a-miss. Listen and you’ll hear a mishmash of his SNL boy in the bathtub Simon, his Gong Show host Tommy Maitland and a hint of Fat Bastard. It’s Musk as Mike Myers characters in a blender. 

I prefer Carvey’s Musk, if only because he did a better job of capturing the mogul’s manic energy. But if I’m being fair, Carvey’s impression isn’t much better than Myers’, a work-in-progress hybrid that sounds like Hans and Franz meets Paul McCartney. Carvey knew it wasn’t his best work. “I can’t do Elon Musk very well,” he said on his Superfly podcast. “But I can do something that sounds not like anything. He has an incredible accent — South Africa via Canada via Pennsylvania. It’s almost like, it’s a little bit of Australian in there, a little bit of British, but he’s not totally that.” 

Here’s another way to know Myers missed the mark — at least as of Sunday morning, an otherwise active Musk hasn’t tweeted a word about the impression. That wasn’t the case when Carvey came bouncing onto the Studio 8H stage, a mocking that clearly got under Musk’s skin. 

“Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey,” the former SNL host complained on his Twitter. No such criticism of Myers’ impression (not yet, anyway), signaling that Saturday’s latest jab didn’t leave a mark. And what’s the point if you can’t get under the skin of the rich and powerful? By getting the DOGE daddy to grouse about the sketch, Carvey wins the Musk mocking match.