Bowen Yang’s Historic ‘Saturday Night Live’ Debut

On Saturday, September 28th, comedian Bowen Yang made history by becoming the first Asian American cast member of NBC’s iconic ‘Saturday Night Live’ in its 45-year history (see him in the opening sequence of ths show here).

This season of SNL has not been without controversy even before the season started:

“Following news that Gillis would be joining newcomers Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang — the show’s first Chinese-American castmember and third openly gay male cast member — multiple clips surfaced of some of Gillis’ old podcast episodes. In a since-deleted video from 2018, which was shared on Twitter by writer Seth Simons, Gillis made racist jokes about Chinese people and made offensive racial slurs.

After a public apology from Gillis that many felt was half-heartedSaturday Night Live decided to cut ties with him.”

Yang first appeared in the ‘cold open’ as North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un.

And later, as Democratic presidential candiate, Andrew Yang which was part of an overall parody of  a DNC Townhall debate, where I thought  Maya Rudolph did a great impression of Senator Kamala Harris’ debate performance. Yang tweeted his impression:

 

Best of luck to Bowen Yang this season!

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About John

I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
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