Will Forte and Willem Dafoe Will Host Saturday Night Live's Next Two Episodes

Will Forte and Willem Dafoe Will Host Saturday Night Live’s Next Two Episodes

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Saturday Night Live has a couple of first-time hosts lined up for their last two episodes of January, and they’re so good that even the grumps over here at Paste felt the need to write about it. (Okay, the grump. I am the only grump at Paste. I wish I wasn’t, I’m not proud of it, but with acceptance comes peace, and whatnot.)

SNL’s next two hosts are Will Forte and Willem Dafoe. Forte, of course, was a long-time SNL cast member, starring on the show from 2002 to 2010, and established himself as one of the weirdest, smartest, and most consistently hilarious cast members in the show’s long run. Since then he’s done some legit acting and starred in the fantastic sitcom The Last Man on Earth, and most recently headlined a Peacock series based on his old SNL character MacGruber. Hopefully Forte will bring the kind of unpredictable absurdity he was known for as a cast member back to the show. Joining him as musical guest will be Måneskin, who apparently won Eurovision, or something. Their episode airs this weekend, on Saturday, Jan. 22.

Dafoe will be stepping in for the following episode on Jan. 29. The four-time Oscar nominee has long been one of the most acclaimed actors of his day, and despite proving his own comic chops multiple times over the years this will be his first time hosting SNL. If the show’s writers aren’t coming up with their creepiest stuff ever for Dafoe to sink his teeth into, then I don’t even know what they’re doing over there. Dafoe was most recently seen reprising his role as Norman “The Green Goblin” Osborn in Spider-Man: No Way Home, so don’t be surprised if there’s some kind of Spidey sketch in his episode. The musical guest on his episode will be massive pop star Katy Perry, who’s probably more famous to people under 40 than Dafoe himself.

Of course it remains deeply questionable for SNL to run new, live episodes in front of a studio audience as the omicron surge continues, especially since they had to semi-cancel an episode in December after an undisclosed number of crew tested positive for Covid. Apparently the latest “guy who just bought a boat” Weekend Update segment is crucial enough to risk infection. Forte and Dafoe will be enough to get us to tune in from the comfort of our own home, though, or at least watch whatever sketches look interesting on YouTube the next day.

Kristen Wiig And Willem Dafoe Were On SNL With Will Forte

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Later in the monologue, Will took questions from an audience member: Lorne Michaels himself, in a rare on camera appearance. Lorne admitted that he booked Will as a host by mistake, and that he really meant to book Willem Dafoe.

SNL ex-cast member Will Forte is the last to get hosting gig, ‘Donald Trump’ plays Wordle

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SNL ex-cast member Will Forte is the last to get hosting gig, ‘Donald Trump’ plays Wordle

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte finally gets the hosting gig (and he’s kinda bitter) while SNL’s Donald Trump plays Wordle.

‘SNL’: Will Forte’s MacGruber Becomes An Anti-Vaxxer Conspiracy Theorist In New Trio Of Sketches

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Will Forte returned to “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend for his first time as host and, as expected, he brought MacGruber with him.

The character — who first was created on “SNL” as a parody of MacGyver, then went on to have his own movie, and just dropped the first season of a TV show on Peacock last month — is famously bad at everything he does, and ends up getting everybody blown up.

However, Forte managed to breathe fresh life into the still-funny sketch, with a little help from his “MacGruber” co-stars Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe.

The first “MacGruber” sketch of the night (because they almost always comes in threes), sees the trio trying to defuse a bomb in a bank, inside a sealed vault. All three are wearing protective face masks, before MacGruber asks them to take them off, so he can use them to create some elaborate contraption to defuse the explosive.

“Now both of you, hand me your masks!” MacGruber declares. “No time to explain, masks now!”

As MacGruber lights the masks on fire in a tin can, Wiig’s Vicki St. Elmo exclaims, “MacGruber, what are you doing?”

“Freeing us from tyranny, Vick,” he shoots back. “You’re welcome!”

Forte’s take on MacGruber’s stalwart idiocy this time around is to make him an anti-vaxxer and COVID-denier who doesn’t believe in masks and won’t get the shot.

The second sketch, as usual, escalates the situation, the stakes and the insanity. As the intro song suggests, MacGruber has learned the error of his ways and now is “following the science.” Which, for him, means downing a tube of horse de-wormer and a mouthful of hydroxychloroquine.

As MacGruber goes deeper down the rabbit hole of internet conspiracies, the third MacGruber sketch, and the final sketch of the night, sees the increasingly unstable MacGruber rocking a full QAnon Shaman headdress and no shirt.

💥 MACGRUBER 💥 pic.twitter.com/htiZ38hlhE — Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) January 23, 2022

As he rants about a cabal of Hollywood elites who eat babies, he also shares his new world view on politics.

“All I can do is pray for you, take up arms against you, and keep the oath I took to protect this country. Because I am an oath keeper and boy am I proud of that. Which I guess makes me a proud boy,” MacGruber rambles, unaware entirely of what he’s even saying, before once again everything blows up.

It’s unlikely these sketches are technically “MacGruber” “canon,” with regards to the MacGruber character fans can see on the first season of the Peacock streaming series, but it’s great to see Forte bringing a freshness to such a potentially limiting sketch format.

“Saturday Night Live” airs live coast-to-coast at 11:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. PT on Global.

Who’s hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, January 22?

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Saturday Night Live returns tonight with another brand new episode. So who will fans see take the stage as SNL season 47’s latest host?

So far, the season has been dominated by first-timers. Starting with Owen Wilson and most recently Ariana DeBose, nearly every episode has been hosted by an SNL rookie. Only Paul Rudd entered Studio 8H with prior hosting experience.

Fans will see that trend continue on Saturday. Will Forte will host Saturday Night Live for the first time. He’ll be joined by musical guest Måneskin.

Of course, Forte is very familiar with Saturday Night Live. He was a cast member for eight years, providing SNL with a George W. Bush impression along with absurd characters like the Falconer, Tim Calhoun, and of course, MacGruber.

What to expect from Will Forte on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live fans should expect Will Forte to bring some of that absurd, bizarre comedy that became his calling card back to the show tonight. It’s hard to imagine Forte doing anything other than the so-called “10-to-1” sketches he delivered year after year.

He comes to SNL to promote MacGruber, the Peacock series based on his famous character that also received a film treatment. It feels like a new MacGruber sketch tonight is a no-brainer. The only question is whether or not his co-stars Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe could make a cameo.

Speaking of cameos, they are always a possibility when a former cast member returns to host. Fred Armisen popped up earlier this season when Jason Sudeikis made his triumphant return. So besides Wiig, there stands a chance that someone like Seth Meyers could assist Forte.

Saturday Night Live airs tonight at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC. The show will also stream live on Peacock.

Are you excited for Will Forte to host Saturday Night Live tonight? How do you think the former SNL cast member will do? Share your thoughts in the comment section below and be sure to check back with Last Night On for all the highlights.