'SNL' Veteran Says It's A 'Completely Different' Show In Donald Trump Era

Despite what you saw at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night each week, Donald Trump left the “Saturday Night Live” team exhausted and confused.

Shortly after this most recent season of “SNL,” Bobby Moynihan left the show to pursue a sitcom with CBS, called “Me, Myself & I.” Moynihan had completed nine seasons with the show, with the episodes during and after the 2016 presidential campaign earning much higher viewership ratings than the show had typically seen.

Moynihan’s exit was a bit perplexing; he had become a veteran on the show and “SNL” had never been more popular during his run. Now that the actor is doing press for this new sitcom, he’s inevitably fielding questions about his departure.

At a TCA event, Moynihan finally explained that last season was “the hardest year easily,” according to Deadline. Trump and his cohorts’ effect on the show sounds like an internal nightmare.

“You get so used to never sleeping and writing all night long, and I made it through eight years of this, thinking this can’t get any worse,” said Moynihan. “And then, all of a sudden Trump happens ... With Trump you would come in on Friday and he did something nuts, and we’d have to re-do everything. At times we were doing a brand new cold open on Saturday.”

Despite Trump’s actions occasionally being humorous (in an absurdist way), it’s far from easy to create a worthwhile parody of the man. Or at least, the task is easily much harder than other political figures the show has tackled throughout its decadeslong run.

“I felt like I was on one show for eight years and another for one year,” Moynihan elaborated. “It was a completely different machine last year, took on a whole different level.”

But even if there was this anguish behind the scenes, Moynihan made sure to assert he still remembers last season fondly. He said it was “weirdly, maybe deep down one of my favorites” and added, “I was glad I got to be there for it.”