NBC’s brand-new variety sketch show Maya and Marty wasted little time turning political by featuring a skit in its first episode that poked fun at the wives of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and former candidate Sen. Ted Cruz.
In the sketch from the new series, produced by Saturday Night Live‘s Lorne Michaels, Melania Trump introduces a new line of “edible diamonds” while Heidi Cruz pokes fun at her accent and laments how she was compared to her during the presidential primary.
Trump and Cruz are played by Saturday Night Live alumni Maya Rudolph and Kate McKinnon, respectively. McKinnon is perhaps best known for also playing Hillary Clinton on SNL.
“The only thing I love more than Donald is diamonds,” Melania Trump says in an over-the-top accent in the skit. “But we all ask ourselves: why can I not eat it? Not anymore you can’t. With Melania’s Edible Diamonds.”
Trump then takes a bite out of the diamond ring on her finger.
Meanwhile, McKinnon’s Heidi Cruz pokes fun at Trump’s accent, telling her to say “Popsicle,” “Virginia,” and “Planned Parenthood is the devil’s work.”
“I loved being compared to you,” McKinnon’s Cruz tells Rudolph’s Trump of the time their husbands spent together on the Republican primary campaign trail.
“It’s funny because my face is so perfect, and yours is so loose and funny it’s like a broken balloon,” Trump answers.
Reactions to the first episode of the new series, which also stars Martin Short, were mixed.
In its review, the Hollywood Reporter called the show a “bland, product placement-filled primetime take on SNL for summer,” while Entertainment Weekly put the Trump-Cruz sketch in its list of “5 thumbs-up moments” from the premiere.
Meanwhile, Yahoo! TV’s Ken Tucker called the new program “curiously awful” and USA Today‘s Robert Blanco wrote that “nothing felt fresh or alive — a problem that could be at least be mitigated if the hosts stopped pushing and performing for a few minutes and allowed us to believe we were seeing them as they truly are.”
Maya and Marty airs Monday nights this summer on NBC.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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