SNL VP debate

Image source: NBC

Saturday Night Live’s take on the vice presidential debate featured a boisterous, interrupting Joe Biden, a vague, water drinking Paul Ryan, and a tough moderator in Martha Raddatz, who warned both candidates she was not PBS’ Jim Lehrer and not to walk all over her.

Things got started with Ryan, played by Taran Killam, hitting President Barack Obama on unemployment and the debt. Immediately, Jason Sudeikis’ Joe Biden began interrupting and guffawing, slapping the table for emphasis as he laughed.

“Oh God, Martha I’m sorry, but with all due respect this is a bunch of malarkey,” Biden said.

“A bunch of malarkey?” Raddatz, played by cast member Kate McKinnon, asked. “What does that mean?”

“It’s Irish,” Ryan supplied.

“Irish is I come smack that dumb look off your face,” Biden tough-talked.

Later in the sketch, Ryan — sipping almost continuously from his water glass — was asked to provide specifics about his ticket’s economic plan. Unable to do so beyond “close loopholes, bring down tax rates and erase the deficit,” he was still happy to repeat it with hand gestures.

Moving on to the abortion question — which Raddatz prefaced by noting that baseball playoffs are underway — Ryan told the story of seeing first seeing his daughter on the sonogram and nicknaming her “Bean.”

Biden’s answer had to do with his Catholic faith.

“Now when it comes to church, I may not go every Sunday,” he said. “But on Christmas Eve, I am front-row center singing ‘Joy to the World’ as loudly and off-key as I can. I accept the teachings of the Catholic Church, but then I ignore them and do whatever I want. Now I feel kinda guilty about that — but yeah, whatever.”

Watch the full sketch below, via NBC: