'Saturday Night Live,' late-night hosts take a few jabs at Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers over his unvaccinated status
Pete Davidson parodied Aaron Rodgers in the opening minutes of “Saturday Night Live,” capping off a week in which the Green Bay Packers quarterback also found himself the punchline on several late-night talk shows.
Davidson as Rodgers, wearing the same “Say When” T-shirt and a blue knit hat similar to the one Rodgers did during his Friday appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” to address his unvaccinated status since testing positive for COVID-19, was one of the guests in the cold open sketch of the Fox News program “Justice w/Judge Jeanine.”
Cecily Strong as Judge Jeanine Pirro welcomed him to the show remotely, introducing him as “an American brave enough to say, ‘Screw you, science, I know Joe Rogan.’
“Aaron, you’re not vaccinated. So what. Who the hell cares. It’s your body, your choice, and please never use that quote for any other issues,” Strong says in the sketch.
“Exactly, Jeanine. It’s my body and my COVID, you know, I can give it to whoever I want, but suddenly the woke mob is coming after me,” Davidson says as Rodgers. “It’s gotten so bad that State Farm called and they’re not even offering me the Rodgers Rate.”
Strong then asks if he ever lied about being vaccinated, to which Davidson’s Rodgers replies, “I never lied. I took all my teammates into a huddle. Got all their faces 3 inches away from my wet mouth and told them, ‘Trust me, I’m more or less immunized. Go team.’”
Rodgers' name also came up during "Weekend Update," but not as one of the headlines of the week.
Kenan Thompson showed up as Ice Cube, who recently left the upcoming comedy film "Oh Hell No" after declining a request from producers to get vaccinated. At the end of the segment, Thompson pointed to his Las Vegas Raiders cap and said, "Hey, Aaron Rodgers, come to the Raiders, man."
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Earlier in the week, prior to Rodgers' Friday appearance on "McAfee" to talk at length about his decision not to get vaccinated, late-night talk show hosts also took shots at Rodgers over his unvaccinated status.
Jimmy Kimmel (about 2 minutes in on the video) joked on Thursday that Rodgers would have to watch the Packers-Kansas City Chiefs game “from mahome,” a reference to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who has also been Rodgers’ co-star in State Farm commercials since 2019.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” showed the video clip of an August press conference in which Rodgers was asked if he was vaccinated and replied, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized," and then ran it a second time but made to look like Rodgers raised his arms to do air quotes around that answer.
Kimmel also brought up the “homeopathic treatment” Rodgers reportedly received instead of the vaccine.
“We should’ve known, because nothing says I heal myself with crystals like this haircut,” Kimmel said, showing an image of Rodgers from this offseason wearing aviators and sporting a man bun. “I mean, that little knot on top. Aaron is a Karen. That’s the fact of the matter.
“Honestly, the only thing worse than not getting vaccinated when you’re in close contact with other people is letting them think you’re vaccinated when you’re not,” Kimmel said.
“Late Night with Seth Meyers” (about 30 seconds in) also went with a photo of Rodgers’ hair to land its joke. Rodgers said in September he had been growing his hair out in the past year in preparation for his Halloween costume, which turned out to be John Wick.
“Despite telling reporters earlier this year that he'd been immunized, Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers reportedly received a homeopathic treatment from his personal doctor to raise his antibody levels instead of getting the coronavirus vaccine," Meyers said. “Dude, that's an immunization the same way this is a ponytail. It’s not.”
During his monologue on "The Tonight Show" (about 1 minute, 40 seconds in), host Jimmy Fallon had some fun with the wordplay of Rodgers' "I've been immunized" response.
“That’s not the only confusing statement that he’s made about his vaccine status," Fallon said. "For example, in one press conference he said, ‘I’d like to think of myself as vaccine-adjacent.’ In another press conference he said, ‘In a spiritual sense, are any of us truly vaccinated?’ And finally, he cleared things up by saying, ‘I didn’t not, not, not not, not get the shot. Not.’”
Contact Kendra Meinert at 920-431-8347 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Pete Davidson shows up as Aaron Rodgers on 'Saturday Night Live'
