X

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

Continue with Facebook Continue with email

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.

Al Gore Takes "Green" Message to Saturday Night Live

Al Gore took his message to Saturday Night Live for NBC's "Green Week," joking that he had a "backup plan" and zinging the network for the patronizing opportunity to let him appear once a year — "like Punxsutawny Phil."

Douglas J Rowe

Al Gore took his message to Saturday Night Live for NBC's "Green Week," joking that he had a "backup plan" and zinging the network for the patronizing opportunity to let him appear once a year — "like Punxsutawny Phil."

"I'm going to start acting crazy," he told "Weekend Update" anchor Seth Myers. "I think it's crazy that our politicians aren't worried about the climate crisis. So it's time to outcrazy the crazy."

Among his insane plans: planting trees in politicians' front yards in the middle of the night with toy guns taped to them — pointed at the door. "So that when they wake up and walk out of their houses in the morning, they'll think it's the forest coming to get their revenge."

NBC holding annual green week

The 61-year-old former vice president — who's won the Nobel Prize, an Academy Award and a Grammy for trying to bring an international focus on global warming — said he knows the score and needs to make his time count when he's on TV.

"Once a year during 'Green Week,' NBC calls up Al Gore to come on TV to talk about the environment," he deadpanned. "Thanks, by the way. I can't tell you how exciting it is to have a bully pulpit on a fourth-place network."

At least Gore had his say during that segment.

Earlier in the show, Gore appeared in a the recurring skit sending up a BET show, "What Up With That?" — the whole premise of which is the host takes the few words that guests can get out of their mouths and starts riffing on those works with the chorus, you guessed it, "What up with that?"

Gore, who also appeared on 30 Rock last week, was almost lost amid the bedlam of a goofy program featuring a snake-wielding wrestler, "a singer from the future" (played by host Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a dancing clown.

Watch Gore on SNL's "Weekend Update"