Ellen DeGeneres was seeing double Wednesday.
The daytime talk show host invited Kate McKinnon to make another appearance on her eponymous daytime talk show. "I love her so much. She impersonates me on Saturday Night Live. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's charming, she's hilarious—she's me, is what she is," DeGeneres told her studio audience. "She really is hilarious, but it's weird to have somebody do impressions of you because you hear it and you're like, 'Well, that's such an exaggeration. I mean, it's funny, but that doesn't sound like me at all.' And then the next day your friends call you up and they're like, 'Did you see Kate on SNL? She sounded exactly like you.' She does exaggerate. She always says, 'I'm Ellen! I'm Ellen!' I don't even know what that is. 'I'm Ellen!'"
Enter McKinnon, who walked onstage wearing the exact same outfit as DeGeneres. "I'm Ellen. Step aside, blondie," she said before announcing that she would be delivering the monologue.
"Hi y'all. Happy Wednesday. I gotta tell you about something that happened last night up at the house. [Portia de Rossi] and I got a puppy and we named it Kid to make it sound like we have a kid. Funnily enough a kid is a baby goat. And I love baby goats! I love 'em! I love baby goats!" McKinnon said while in character. "True story: I once went on a ski vacation with a baby goat."
DeGeneres corrected her, saying, "That's not true at all."
McKinnon ignored her and continued togo for big laughs. "So anyway, I'm up at the house and all of a sudden one of the kitty, kitty, kitty cats—"
"OK, I never say kitty, kitty, kitty cats," DeGeneres protested.
"Yes you do, you tiny beauty," McKinnon said. "I put together a few of the times you've said it. Do we have that? Take a look." After showing a highlight reel, DeGeneres said, "That's you! That doesn't count." McKinnon was undeterred, however. "Anyway…one of the kitty, kitty, kitty cats jumps on the bed, right on my head. Kid—the puppy, not the goat, though I love baby goats—jumps on the bed, right on Portia's head. Suddenly the rest of the cats jump on the bed, the rest of dogs, one of Portia's horses. Animals are everywhere. I can't find the remote and I'm just laying there thinking, 'I'm Ellen!'"
"That did not happen," DeGeneres said.
"It did," McKinnon said. "I'm Ellen."
"Well, Ellen, do you know what happens now?" DeGeneres asked.
"Of course I do. I'm Ellen," McKinnon said. "We dance."
And dance they did. Later in the episode, McKinnon ditched her DeGeneres costume and talked about some of the other famous people she impersonates on NBC's Saturday Night Live, like Justin Bieber and Hillary Clinton. "It is a lot of pressure because all my impressions come out of absolute love for whoever I'm doing. You most of all, of course," the comedic actress said. "It's nerve wracking. It's kind of like getting caught playing dress up in your mom's closest and you just want to be like, 'Mommy, am I pretty? Do I look good in your clothes? Am I doing all right?'"
"That's what it's like?" DeGeneres asked.
"That's what it's like, yes," McKinnon replied. After a beat, she joked, "I never did that, but I would assume it would be something like that."
(E! and NBC are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)