'SNL' Mocks Presidential Debate, Brings On Big Bird (VIDEO)

It is a time-honored tradition to lampoon the presidential debate on "Saturday Night Live," so you had to figure that as soon as Mitt Romney name-dropped Big Bird during the debate last week, the writers were thanking their lucky stars to have that to riff on.

But Big Bird came later in the program; first, there was the debate, which attempted to explain why President Obama seemed asleep at the wheel during the event. As Jim Lehrer (played by Chris Parnell) and Mitt Romney (played by Jason Sudeikis) went back and forth, Barack Obama (played by Jay Pharoah) worried to himself about having forgotten Michelle's anniversary gift and struggled to stay conscious in the thin Denver air.

Highlights of the sketch included Romney's 41-point plan (including "six abrupt reversals of position and three outright lies") and Obama's disinterest in responding to Romney taking credit for killing Bin Laden ("No, you two go ahead").

Noticeably missing from the debate sketch was any mention of Big Bird, but the reason became clear later: they were saving him for an actual appearance on "Weekend Update." Big Bird himself sat down with Seth Myers to talk about the mention during the debate, but mostly stayed away from any political statements (probably at the request of PBS) and instead opted for a lot of bird-related puns.

Check out the two sketches below: