SNL’s “Bern Your Enthusiasm” Perfectly Cast Larry David As Bernie Sanders

To mark Larry David’s first time hosting Saturday Night Live he was perfectly cast as Bernie Sanders in “Bern Your Enthusiasm” – a skit parodying both the presidential hopeful and David’s comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David has a colorful history with America’s longest-running variety show. Before he found success with Seinfeld, David worked as a writer on SNL in the mid-1980s during the show’s tenth season. In a typically Larry David moment, he rage quit after having his umpteenth sketch was cut. When regret set in for David he – on the advice of pal Kenny Kramer – simply attended the next SNL writer’s meeting as if nothing had happened, and finished out the season in an anecdote that would later make its way into an episode of Seinfeld.

Larry David returned to SNL in 2015 when he made his debut as his doppelganger Bernie Sanders during a season 41 episode hosted by Tracy Morgan, which featured a cold open sending up the recent democratic debate. His next Bernie Sanders outing was in a season 41 episode controversially hosted by Donald Trump in which he also appeared as himself during Trump’s opening monologue and called the future POTUS a racist.

Memorable as that was, David’s funniest appearance on SNL – and his best turn as Bernie Sanders – came in “Bern Your Enthusiasm.” The skit featured in another season 41 episode hosted by Larry David himself and paid perfect tribute to both his SNL Bernie Sanders persona and the fictionalized version of himself found on Curb Your Enthusiasm. It imagined how well Sanders would’ve fared during his grassroots campaign if he was more like David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm alter ego.

Hence, in “Bern Your Enthusiasm” we see Sanders in awkward situations like refusing to shake the germ-infested hand of a supporter (Leslie Jones) because she just coughed into it, and failing to help another supporter who needs a hand popping a dislocated shoulder back in place. These Larry David-like neuroses come back to haunt Sanders when he loses the Iowa caucus to Hillary Clinton by five votes; the coughing lady and her family and the dislocated shoulder woman, who switched sides to Hillary after Sanders annoyed them.

To top it all off, the man himself – the real Bernie Sanders – appeared alongside Larry David in a later sketch about a sinking ship that was like looking at a pair of very nearly identical twins. Funnily enough, the year after Larry David hosted Saturday Night Live he and Bernie Sanders discovered on the PBS show Finding Your Roots they were actually distant cousins which makes “Bern Your Enthusiasm” even more perfect.