Political Spoofs, and Amy Poehler, Return to "SNL"

    Hillary Clinton, post-election, is back with a high-visibility job – and so is Amy Poehler, who returned to NBC’s "Saturday Night Live" this weekend to open the show by playing the newly named designate for Secretary of State.
    Poehler also returned, for the first time since becoming a mother, to the co-anchor desk at "Weekend Update," going through the comic newscast with head writer Seth Meyers. Afterward, she grabbed his tie, pulled him close and smiled.

     Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only 2008 presidential election character to make an impersonated appearance. Barack Obama was back, too, in a taped piece in which Fred Armisen finally delivered his first solid home-run impersonation. The occasion was a jazz-tinged spot in which Armisen’s Obama, speaking to the camera, explained all his post-electon choices: appointing Hillary, not stripping Joe Lieberman of his committee chairmanship, even reaching out to Republican rival John McCain. "Why?" Obama asked, and gave his own velvet-voiced answer: "I choose cool."
    Also scoring on the show: guest host John Malkovich replaced an opening monologue with a very funny reading of "’Twas the Night before Christmas," peppered with pointedly depressing asides; Kristen Wiig introduced a new, immediately successful character, "Sexy Shannon" (who acts sexily, but shifts quickly to off-putting); and Andy Samberg added to his "SNL Digital Short" catalogue with a bouncy, rude clip that, like "D*** in a Box," found inspiration below the belt, and is a good bet to go viral.
    Nothing else worked as well – but in tracking this show’s success ratio, especially post-election, the latest "SNL" should be considered quite a success.