Saturday, November 23, 2019

SNL Live Thread 11/23/19: Will Ferrell / King Princess

Former SNL Star Will Ferrell returns to host the show for the 5th time tonight (It feels like more doesn't it???) having hosted previously before in May of '05, May of '09, May of '12, and Jan of '18. (I knew he had hosted relatively recently!)  He has made several cameos tho on the show--twice alone in '03 which was the year after he had left! (I remember he showed up once during a Weekend Update segment basically to promote "Old School" which had just opened up, and he had Brittney Spears sitting on his lap for some reason)




I don't remember too much about his previous hosting gigs--i remember he did a sketch in 09 that just had him belting out Billy Joel's Goodnight Saigon that had a slew of guest stars marching thru the stage singing it behind him which I was confused by cause i didn't get what the joke was supposed to be there...or even if there was one! I say that I don't remember tho because i wanted to say that I don't think he has a record of reprising his former popular SNL characters from his 95-02 run on the show too often, tho i do recall him popping up as W around the time Tina Fey was regularly appearing as Sarah Palin, but like I wouldn't expect him to do something familiar tonight, although lets be honest--its Will Ferrell so more likely than not he's gonna be screaming comedically at some point during the show--and God Bless Him for doing so!

While i havn't been crazy about all the former cast members coming back and cameoing on the show repeatedly over the past several years (Fred Armisen--would you at least try and give us all a chance to miss you???)....at least we can all point to Ferrell and be like "Hey remember when this show actually was capable of producing talent that could actually go on to become movie stars and no one doubted that???" (Well ok, some people probably doubted it, but they weren't paying attention to how easily Ferrell dominated the show during his tenure there then, and when he left, whom did he leave as the dominant force in the show's cast? Jimmy Fallon I think right? Yikes.)

(I think its kinda interesting actually that Ferrell might've been the last movie star the show produced as the people who became name brands in the cast on the show post Ferrell have mostly found their success on tv, tho not for a lack of trying on the big screen--and i know the reasons for that are varied--comedies don't make as much at the box office as they used to so studios cut down on making or investing in them, and that in turn means there's fewer opportunities for potential stars to break out on the big screen, but think about it--Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Will Forte, even Fallon himself all found their biggest post SNL stuff happening on the tv---the exceptions might be Kristen Wiig who had Bridesmaids and at least keeps appearing in movies, and maybe Jason Jones who has been a steady character actor in movies pretty consistently over the years at least--that's not a knock, but it is telling how long its been since SNL had somebody in its cast actually go on to mega movie stardom...tho that doesn't stop them from trying as we see every so often--and you never know Pete Davidson might actually manage to do it since he's got Judd Apatow in his corner.)

Anyways getting back to the show tonight, the musical guest is King Princess who is a 20 year old singer whom i know virtually nothing about since I don't follow today's music scene all that closely. (Hell i didn't even get a question about Post Malone right on Jeopardy the other night and i at least know who that is!)

 And there you have it, what more can one say but SNL? SNL? SNL?


Oh right, I almost forgot, the "Vintage" SNL being run tonight is the Jonah Hill hosted episode from literally November of last year. (As the old NBC slogan went, "If you havn't seen it, its new to you" tho to be fair, I did see it, and i still couldn't tell you anything that happened in it--i'm guessing he did his obnoxious kid character that he does every time he hosted in the past tho???)

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