By Cynthia Littleton
Business Editor
“Saturday Night Live” paid tribute to the Milwaukee Brewers’ historic World Series win during a Weekend Update segment that featured the return of Bobby Moynihan’s Drunk Uncle commentator character.
Moynihan spent nine seasons on “SNL,” from 2009 to 2017. His recurring Drunk Uncle character was a classic Archie Bunker-esque East Coast guy with blunt observations on pop culture and politics. He last portrayed Drunk Uncle last year on “Saturday Night Live’s” 50th anniversary special.
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This time around, Drunk Uncle hailed the Brewers’ first World Series victory in the nearly 60-year history of the team as a win attributed to the power of suds in a town that is synonymous with beer — hence the team’s name.
In classic fashion, Drunk Uncle told “Weekend Update” anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che that he was happy for the Brewers but deeply concerned about the state of baseball overall. After recent rule changes, the duration of most baseball games as tightened up, something that Drunk Uncle lamented. Instead of running seven hours, “the game ends in 20 minutes and everybody goes home to watch their gay hockey shows,” Moynihan as Drunk Uncle said in a nod to “Heated Rivalry.”
As usual, Drunk Uncle got progressively more emotional as the segment went on, tossing out one-liners about Elizabeth Holmes (“I believe her”) and “Helen of Troy was white,” in a nod to the ongoing angry debate in some circles about the casting of historical characters in period movies and TV shows.
But just as Drunk Uncle began to wallow, he was surprised by the appearance of two Brewers players , slugger Christian Yelich and second baseman Brice Turang, and the team’s manager, Pat Murphy.
“Don’t worry Drunk Uncle,” Yelich told Moynihan. “It wasn’t a dream.”
Murphy introduced himself to Drunk Uncle, saying that being a baseball manager is “kind of like being the Drunk Uncle of the team.”
Moynihan looked up at the 6-foot-4 Yelich and declared, “I know you — you’re Pete Davidson.”
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