VIDEO: Samantha Bee Completely Nailed It in Her ‘Full Frontal’ Debut

Former “Daily Show” correspondent Samantha Bee’s highly anticipated show, “Full Frontal,” premiered last night and, holy cow, it was pretty great. Bee and her writing team took a no-holds-barred approach, densely packing her opening monologue with jokes that totally met their marks. And pretty much no one was completely safe, though Republicans bore the brunt of the mockery. That’s because, according to Bee, they made it too easy.

“I have to be honest with you,” Bee confessed near the top of the show. “We wrote like two hours of jokes about Democrats. But we had to throw them all out because then the Republicans laid out a banquet of all-you-can-eat crazy.”

After a clip of Ted Cruz’s victory speech in Iowa, Bee — so dismayed by the potential for a Cruz presidency — began fashioning a noose to hang herself with onstage. “Oh, hi!” Bee says, realizing the camera’s back on her. “I’ll finish this later.”

Bee dedicated a special bit to Cruz, whom she labeled a “fist-faced horseshit salesman,” not to put too fine a point on it:

There was also the absolutely brilliant “Jeb?: Ein Film Für Full Frontal,” a fake Werner Herzog documentary about the Bush scion’s lackluster campaign to get into the White House. Jeb is, according to the clip, “this candidate who should be winning but is instead totally getting his ass handed to him by an oddly tinted compilation of psychiatric symptoms” — cut to a clip of Donald Trump speaking — “and by a man who seemed like he would lecture a starving kitten on personal responsibility, and then deport that kitten and his family” — and here we see none other than Ted Cruz.

Note that Dems didn’t escape completely unscathed. Over footage of a New Hampshire town hall event, Bee poked fun at Bernie Sanders, who “played up his image of blustery old grandpa living off Social Security checks and stolen sugar packets.” But it was Hillary Clinton whom Bee couldn’t resist taking to task. After a clip of the candidate pretending that her campaign was an accident and that her political aspirations haven’t stretched back endlessly in time, Bee was forthcoming about her incredulousness. “Oh, fuck off!” she responded, before imitating Clinton as a demon-voiced power-hungry monster.

Then for good measure, there was this segment, which went after Kansas Republican state Sen. Mitch Holmes, who proposed a dress code for people who come to the state capitol building — at least, if those people are women. Bee nails the response with brutally precise satire.

What an auspicious beginning for this new contribution to late night. Here’s hoping things continue in this vein.