SNL host Ariana DeBose learns the limits of a fresh start in this week’s promos
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“You know what they say, ‘New year, new me,’” is how Saturday Night Live star and Emmy nominee Bowen Yang kicked off the previews for this week’s first new show of 2022.
Sporting a bleached blond ’do as evidence of his attempt to kick off the new year with a bang, Yang’s hopeful enthusiasm might be an echo of SNL’s as a whole since the show’s planned big finish of a Paul Rudd-hosted Christmas 2021 blowout was scuttled at the very last second by the Omicron variant.
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Alongside this week’s host Ariana DeBose and musical guest Jack Antonoff of Bleachers, the newly blond Yang proclaimed his readiness for a whole new Yang (and SNL) for this first show of the third year under a global pandemic.
“So it’s mostly the hair?,” DeBose prodded, with Yang admitting that, yes, that’s pretty much all that’s actually new. Still, Yang’s been having a solid season so far (studio-emptying pre-Christmas bug-out notwithstanding), and DeBose, coming straight off her West Side Story triumph, looks ready and willing to inject the show with some Broadway-quality live energy.
In his review, A.A. Dowd notes of the scene-stealing singer and actor, “Ariana DeBose offers a rainbow of conflicting emotions as Sharks moll Anita, her brassy confidence shattering into heartbreak.” (Plus, anyone who had the guts to step into Rita Moreno’s dancing shoes is just the right choice to kick 2022 off with a bang.)
As for this week’s (fingers crossed) return to live comedy, it’s likely SNL will have plenty to say about the unprecedented, show day evacuation and resulting clip show that sent the 2021 half of Saturday Night Live’s 47th season off to an appropriately sputtering end.
Look for Kenan Thompson and Michael Che to lord it over everyone else that they were the only two cast members asked to stay behind on the belatedly abandoned and creaky ship that was episode 9. Plus, Kate McKinnon’s finally back from her Tiger King hiatus, meaning that—Omicron willing—there’ll be a full complement of comedy sailors on deck for DeBose hosting debut.
Roddy Ricch Forced to Call Off ‘SNL’ Performance Because of Covid, Bleachers Tapped to Replace
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UPDATE (1/12): Roddy Ricch was forced to drop off of this weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live due to Covid-19 exposure amongst members of his team. “Due to recent COVID exposure on my team and to keep everyone safe I won’t be able to to perform on SNL this weekend,” the rapper said on Instagram. “I’m working with the SNL team to lock in a new date though!” NBC confirmed that Ricch will be replaced by Jack Antonoff’s band Bleachers.
See you Saturday! pic.twitter.com/pK3BjxbZcH — Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) January 12, 2022
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Saturday Night Live is ushering in its first 2022 episode, on Jan. 15, with West Side Story star Ariana DeBose as host and Roddy Ricch as the musical guest. It marks the first time either artist has appeared on SNL.
DeBose and Lorne Michaels have previously worked together when the actress portrayed Emma in the Michaels-executive produced Schmigadoon! Ricch dropped his sophomore LP, Live Life Fast in December.
The episode follows the late-night comedy show’s Covid-impacted final episode of 2021, which was void of a live audience due to the spike in Omicron cases; Paul Rudd hosted the show. Surprise guests included Tom Hanks and Tina Fey, with a video spot from Steve Martin and Martin Short. Charli XCX, whose slated performance was nixed due to the show’s lighter crew, made an appearance with Rudd for a musical segment called “The Christmas Socks.” It’s unclear if the show will be back to full speed with the entire cast and a live audience when it returns this month.
The Best SNL Celebrity Host of All Time – 24
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The Best SNL Celebrity Host of All Time
Saturday Night Live, or SNL, first hit TV screens in 1975, making it among the most enduring shows in the history of the medium. Creator Lorne Michaels continues to run the show. Some of the original cast went on to become among America’s best-known and most successful comedians. These include John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. The show continues to launch stars who make successful transitions to movies. The most successful of these was probably Eddie Murphy, who became a movie megastar.
The show also has been remarkably successful for NBC. It draws as many as 10 million viewers every episode. Estimates are that SNL brings in over $100 million in ad revenue per year.
To determine the best SNL host of all time, 24/7 Tempo reviewed audience ratings and other data for all episodes from the IMDb. SNL hosts were ranked based on an index composed of two elements: the average IMDb user rating for all episodes hosted by a guest and the total number of episodes hosted by that guest.
Guest hosts have been comedians, singers, politicians, future presidents, sports figures, actors and reality-show stars. When guest hosts click, it usually is because they are able to poke fun at themselves, are on the same page with the comedy troupe and enjoy the process of doing sketch comedy. The guest hosts also have to understand their role in a sketch and be willing to take chances, no matter how outrageous the skit is.
The best Saturday Night Live celebrity host of all time is Steve Martin. Here are the details:
Average episode rating: 7.7/10 (1,389 votes)
Appearances as host: 14 (Oct. 23, 1976, to Jan. 31, 2009)
Highest-rated episode: S3, Ep18 (with musical guest The Blues Brothers)
In determining the best SNL host of all time, the average user ratings were calculated using the number of user votes as a weight. While the average user rating for each host was given full weight in the index, the number of episodes hosted by each guest was given a half-weighting. IMDb ratings data was collected on December 29, 2021.
Click here to see all the best SNL celebrity hosts of all time.
John Goodman’s 1980 SNL audition did not go well, thankfully for us
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Appearing virtually on Friday’s Tonight Show, John Goodman told former Saturday Night Live star Jimmy Fallon just how close he came to actually joining the SNL cast. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever done in front of people in my life,” recalled Goodman of his disastrous 1980 audition, cringing at the memory. So, “not very close” is the answer to that one.
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Still, the now 69-year-old Goodman has gone on to host Saturday Night Live an impressive 13 times over the years, so presumably things worked out for the best. (Goodman last hosted all the way back in 2013, though, so it’s about time for number 14, Lorne. ) Not to pile on that ill-fated cast, tasked with replacing the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players, but Goodman’s subsequent 13 hosting appearances represent more SNL stage time than that claimed by eventual hires like Ann Risley, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, or Tony Rosato. So take that, SNL casting people.
Still, Goodman remains firmly on the SNL brass’ side when it comes to him not getting the gig. (The SNL wiki claims that the slot Goodman was vying for was instead filled by Joe Piscopo, so take that how you will.) Telling Fallon that he went into the potential career-making (or, as it happened for several eventual hires, career-scuttling) opportunity completely unprepared, Goodman noted that the then brash young John Goodman went onstage brimming with the confidence of a guy who’d whipped up his audition piece 15 minutes before going onstage.
“I just knew they’d hire me,” recalled Goodman, still clearly embarrassed, “Just for my pers— ’cause I’m a nice guy.” And while the struggling, 28-year-old Goodman bombed hard on that long-ago day in New York, Goodman doesn’t appear to harbor any ill will. Even though it was another six years or so before True Stories introduced the wider world to the unique glories of a true John Goodman performance. (Apologies to those who recognized the eventual movie and TV legend’s greatness in his 1984 C.H.U.D. role of “cop in diner.”)
As to his current busy schedule, Goodman could only marvel that his Roseanne TV daughter Alicia Goranson has written an upcoming script for an episode of belated spinoff, The Conners, and that he’s not 23 years old anymore, as evidenced by how hard he beefed it in a recent The Righteous Gemstones fight scene. “It’s the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” said Goodman of the impact of his head smashing into the back of a truck in the parking lot stunt gone wrong. Taken to the hospital after the incident, Goodman told Fallon gamely, “They couldn’t tell if I had a concussion, so I guess I’m okay.”
NBC’s newest laugh factory stars an SNL alum
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Ana Gasteyer takes on big business in “American Auto.” #k5evening
LOS ANGELES — She shot to fame on Saturday Night Live back in the ’90s. But these days, Ana Gasteyer is running a car company on NBC’s “American Auto,” a new workplace comedy from some of the same people who brought us “The Office” and “Superstore.”
“The values of the company versus the values of the individuals,” Gasteyer said. “That’s the nature of the conflict that creates comedy.”
The show manufactures laughs from some high-risk sources, including workplace relationships and racism. But Gasteyer says the cast is in the capable hands of creator Justin Spitzer.
“He has a real ear for cultural discord and what might be funny about it,” Gasteyer said.
Gasteyer plays a newly hired CEO with zero car business experience.
Has she ever, in real life, taken on a job for which she didn’t have the appropriate background?
“I kind of always do, right?” she said. “That’s what acting really is. You’re constantly faking it and pretending you know what the hell you’re doing. There’s plenty of times that we all feel like a charlatan. It’s ‘imposter syndrome’ or whatever they call it. We all have it.”
But playing everything from a public radio host to Hillary Clinton on SNL prepared Gasteyer well for stepping into virtually any role.
“The secret sauce of SNL is variety,” Gasteyer said. “It’s just that it’s changing all the time. It’s changing every week. It changes by the host. It changes by the current event of the week. So as much as, sure, I loved playing the music teachers, I loved playing the NPR characters, and I loved doing Martha Stewart and all of those, the delight of that show is showing up on Wednesday and sitting down at the read-through table and somebody’s written something that you absolutely didn’t expect.”