5 ways Gov. Walz, Gaffigan are alike

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Acting overly excitable in a suit from Costco, comedian Jim Gaffigan poked fun at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s Midwestern-dad sensibilities on the season premiere of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” last month.

“Folks, I haven’t been this excited since I got a 10 percent rebate on a leaf blower from Menards,” Gaffigan said during the opening sketch. (Yes, it’s actually 11 percent, as every Midwestern viewer probably shouted at their TV.) “What can I say? I’ve got that BDE: Big dad energy.”

In the sketch Gaffigan impersonated Walz as the Democratic vice presidential nominee alongside former “SNL” cast member Maya Rudolph as Walz’s running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris; former cast member Andy Samberg as her husband, Doug Emhoff; and “SNL” legend Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, current cast members James Austin Johnson returned as former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, while Bowen Yang took on the role of JD Vance, his running mate.

The question of who would play Walz on “SNL” was the subject of much speculation; comedian Steve Martin was an early fan-favorite choice but evidently declined the role. Gaffigan has performed in Minnesota many times, including recent Minnesota State Fair Grandstand appearances in 2017 and 2022.

And in fact, Walz and Gaffigan have quite a bit in common.

1. Both men have similar upbringings

Walz and Gaffigan each have origins in relatively large Midwestern families. The governor, born in 1964, grew up in rural north-central Nebraska with three siblings. The comedian, born in 1966, was raised in Chesterton, Ind., with five other siblings.

2. Both were inspired to follow their fathers’ careers — but changed courses before rising to prominence

At 17, Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard; after college, he became a public school teacher and coach, first in Nebraska and then in Minnesota. Walz joined the National Guard on the encouragement of his father, who had served during the Korean War and also spent his career working in the public education system, he said in a Facebook post.

Following in the footsteps of his own father, a banker, Gaffigan earned a college degree in finance (“hated it,” he told CBS ) and got a job as a litigation consultant (“was horrible at it,” he said in the same interview). Later, when he moved to New York City and began pursuing comedy at night, he worked as an advertising account manager — a job from which, as he joked to NPR, he had to be woken up at his desk to be fired.

3. Both were once football players

Before Walz led high school football teams as “Coach Walz” — a nickname that made it into last weekend’s “SNL” skit — he ran high school track and played basketball and football. He was originally a wide receiver but played defensive lineman his senior year after bulking up from summer National Guard training.

Gaffigan also played football at both high school and collegiate levels: During a one-year stint at Purdue University, he was a walk-on to the Big Ten school’s team, and after transferring to Georgetown University, he played offensive guard and tackle.

4. Both men’s outlooks were deeply affected by the young death of a parent

Walz’s father died of cancer when the now-governor was in high school.

“This certainly shaped me as it deals with health care,” Walz said in a 2018 campaign video. “That last week cost my mom a decade of having to go back to work to pay those bills. I ran for Congress on this idea that health care was a basic, universal human right.”

Gaffigan’s mother died when he was in his early 20s, and he has said her death helped push him to more wholeheartedly pursue his passion for entertainment.

“I think the injustice of it, because she was only 53, had me rethinking this whole idea of following the rules,” he told Variety last year. “I had grown up believing the thing to do was wear a tie and get a job and retire at 60 and play golf for five years until you die. After I lost her, I started reevaluating my entire life.”

5. And both have a penchant for Midwestern comfort food

Earlier this summer, the food website Eater described Walz as “a hype man for Minnesota foodways” — he makes hotdish (and shared a contest-winning recipe with the Pioneer Press a decade ago), he eats pork chops and ice cream at the State Fair, he loves corn dogs. Walz, who does not drink alcohol, has long proclaimed his love for Diet Mountain Dew.

Many of Gaffigan’s best-known comedy bits revolve around foods like Hot Pockets — which bear a similarity to the runza, a Nebraska enclosed sandwich of sorts of which Walz is a devoted fan. Gaffigan has also been quite vocal about his love for other Midwestern delights, from Chicago deep-dish pizza to butter burgers in his book “Food: A Love Story.”

How does Gaffigan feel about Diet Mountain Dew? What is Walz’s favorite Hot Pockets variety? We have yet to find out.

Gaffigan was unavailable for an interview and his representatives declined to comment, and Walz’s team did not respond by press time.

But Gaffigan has signed on to play Walz for the entire “SNL” season — so maybe we’ll learn in an upcoming episode.