Julia Louis-Dreyfus Brought 'Seinfeld' To 'SNL'

Julia Louis-Dreyfus wants you to know that she's much more than just the funny lady from the Old Navy commercials (her joke, not mine). On Saturday, the Veep star hosted Saturday Night Live for the third time, ahead of the HBO show's return for a fifth season. Appropriately, Louis-Dreyfus incorporated into her SNL episode some of her best-known roles, including Selina Meyer on Veep and Elaine Benes on Seinfeld.

In the show's cold open, Kate McKinnon and Larry David portrayed their usual Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. This time, they appeared at CNN's Brooklyn debate, which took place between the real candidates on Thursday. The banter was its usual degree of funny, with McKinnon and David playing up the amount of finger-waving that tends to occur between Clinton and Sanders on stage. The real punchline rolled around when the candidates took questions from "real New Yorkers" in the audience. Louis-Dreyfus posed as her beloved Seinfeld character, while SNL's Vanessa Bayer played Friends' Rachel Green. Louis-Dreyfus' character wasn't only relevant as a "real New Yorker," but also as a star of the successful sitcom that David co-created with Jerry Seinfeld. And yes, there were plenty of yada-yada-yadas to go around.

Among other Seinfeld references, Louis-Dreyfus asked David about the Vermont senator's tax plan. "Sen. Sanders, you believe that the super-rich should pay more in taxes, but wouldn't that be bad for actors who made a lot of money on a certain, very successful sitcom?" then continued, "Wouldn't it be even worse for the person who created that sitcom?"

Into her opening monologue, Louis-Dreyfus incorporated a different character she's known for, Veep's Vice President Selina Meyer. She related her HBO show to the current election, this time apparently alluding to the Republican Party. "When we started doing our show, the idea of a presidential candidate being a cursing, narcissistic buffoon was supposed to be a joke," she said.

It was perhaps the perfect time for Louis-Dreyfus to host SNL. After all, her hit political comedy is about to launch a new season, while a certain real-life female candidate runs for president and a certain "narcissistic buffoon" also dominates the election. Not to mention, her former producer David has become a regular on SNL lately, thanks to his uncanny impersonation of a certain democratic socialist candidate. If only Jennifer Aniston had been there to play her role in the Democratic debate sketch.