‘Angry’ Mike Myers defends 'elbows up' 'SNL' protest after Elon Musk jabs

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Mike Myers is opening up on his Saturday Night Live “Canada Is Not For Sale” protest T-shirt and his support for Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

The SNL alum made his first appearance on the late-night comedy show in over a decade last month, mocking tech titan Elon Musk in the program’s cold open.

Impersonating President Donald Trump, James Austin Johnson joked about Musk’s newly created role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

“They’re doing mass firings in the government. We love mass firings because you don’t have to know what any of their names are or what exactly they do,” Johnson’s Trump quipped.

“I mean, we’re not going to get it perfect, you know, we are firing the non-essential employees, like air traffic controllers,” Myers goofily responded in character. 

As Trump threatened to levy devastating tariffs on his home country, Toronto-born Myers returned at the end of the episode sporting a black “Canada Is Not For Sale” T-shirt that featured the Canadian flag. As the credits rolled, Myers mouthed “elbows up” to the camera, referencing a common hockey term used to signal it’s time to fight back.

The bit was one of the night’s most talked-about online, with many praising Myers for standing up for Canadians. But Musk, who was born in South Africa but spent some of his early years living in Canada, seemingly lashed out at the parody in a post to X, writing, “Humour fails when it lies.”

In an interview with New York Times, Myers said he became “angrier and angrier” as he thought about Musk’s swipe that “Canada is not a real country” after a petition was launched calling for the revocation of his Canadian citizenship.

“What happened came from my ankles and from my brain and from my heart, and it was not about me — it was about my country. I wanted to send a message home to say that I’m with you, you know,” Myers told the publication.

Myers, who was an SNLcast member from 1989 to 1995, has played Musk two other times this season.

Earlier this month, Myers made light of recent attacks against the billionaire businessman’s Tesla car dealerships.

“Recently, our dealerships have been the targets of many attacks,” Myers said in the sketch. “Suddenly, no one likes Tesla cars. I asked myself why, then I answered myself. Because of me!”

After one X user called Myers’ taunts “a new low in comedy,” Musk entered the fray once again to blast the late-night show, writing, “SNL hasn’t been funny in a long time. They are their own parody.”

Myers, who’s now a U.S. citizen after moving to America in 1988, also addressed Trump’s constant jabs about Canada becoming the “51st state” and the punishing tariffs that threaten to cripple the country economically.

In an interview with Time magazine published Friday, Trump said that he is serious about having Canada become part of the U.S.

When asked by Time’s writer Eric Cortellessa if he was “trolling a bit” with his suggestions that Canada join the U.S., Trump replied, “Actually, no, I’m not.”

“We’re taking care of their military,” Trump said. “We’re taking care of every aspect of their lives, and we don’t need them to make cars for us. In fact, we don’t want them to make cars for us. We want to make our own cars. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything from Canada. And I say the only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state.”

Myers told the Times that Trump’s constant remarks about Canada becoming part of the U.S. have “really hurt our feelings.”

“We love America. We love you guys. We don’t understand what this madness is … Americans are the last people you would think would ever be a threat to us,” he said.

Trump’s rhetoric angered Myers so much that he filmed a political ad for Liberal Leader Mark Carneyahead of Monday’s parliamentary election.

“I think he’s very reasonable,” Myers said of Carney. “He’s taken a calm, resolute, articulate stance in defence of our sovereignty.”

In the ad, Carney interrogates Myers with a series of questions aiming to test his knowledge of Canada.

Myers easily aced Carney’s quiz, which included questions about his hometown, Mr. Dressup’s two puppet friends and his knowledge of hockey.

“I wanted it to be like, ‘I know I don’t live there anymore, and let’s talk about that,’” Myers said. “I thought it would be funny if the prime minister of Canada ran an identity test on me.” 

Elsewhere in his conversation with the Times, Myers responded to chatter that fellow Canadian Wayne Gretzky has lost some of his standing in his home country thanks to his friendship with Trump. Calling the hockey legend a “great Canadian,” Myers invited Gretzky to join him in standing up for Canada.

“Red Rover, Red Rover, we call Wayne over,” Myers said. “I hope he does. We would accept him with open arms.”

Myers also revealed one upside of Trump’s incessant takeover talk.

“As the great Canadian poet Joni Mitchell said, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’” he said. “The possibility of it all being gone has raised our consciousness of how great we are.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com