On Saturday Night Live, Tom Hanks opened his ninth hosting gig on the show by stepping into a new role: America's Dad. The Oscar-winning actor's first order of business as dad was to sit the audience down for a serious talk. Tom Hanks' SNL monologue during the Oct. 22 episode was the dad chat everyone desperately needs right now. Look, it's a tense time in this country with the Presidential Election right around the corner — and luckily, Hanks was around to let us know it's all going to be OK.
Hanks opened the episode by impersonating Chris Wallace during the third Presidential Debate sketch and then slipped into a friendly, cuddly grey sweater, accepting his new role as "America's Dad" (as declared by Esquire magazine earlier this year). And it's totally comforting. "How are you doing, champ?" he begins saying to the audience. "Rough year, huh? Feeling anxious and conflicted and you're scared about what's going to happen next?"
Hanks continues to say that all of the country's changes are just part of growing up, noting that the nation is now "browner" and "gayer" than it used to be. "That is cool," he says. "That's trill. That's fleek, whatever that means." Aww. The only thing better than a dad chat from Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks saying "trill" and "fleek."
He goes onto reassure the audience that he still loves us all, even though he smells the country's smoking habit ("I'm not going to your mother, because she can smell it too") and he can't help us out of debt ("I don't have $19 trillion"). "Remember America: You went to the moon," Hanks says. "You created the Internet. You invented a cannon that shoots t-shirts."
He continues, advising all of his "children" to think with their heads and their hearts and not their private parts. Just like you would expect from America's dad.
Image: Giphy
