Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: December 9, 2017

After 5 first-time hosts already this season, SNL turns to a veteran tonight as James Franco hosts an all-new Saturday Night Live.

Tonight’s new Saturday Night Live brings the amount of times James Franco has hosted to four. Just one away from SNL‘s very prestigious 5-Timers Club. Franco has hosted the top-rated variety series in 2008, 2009 and 2014. He was also involved in another part of SNL‘s history with his 2010 documentary, “Saturday Night“. The James Franco directed doc follows the SNL producers, directors, cast and crew through the entire process of what it takes to put a single episode of the show together and ready to go live at 11:30pm on NBC on Saturday nights. He was also part of Saturday Night Live‘s big “SNL:40” fortieth anniversary celebration television event.

On tonight’s episode, James Franco will be promoting his new film, “The Disaster Artist” which he not only stars in, but directed as well. The film is based on the true story featured in the book (same name as the film) “The Disaster Artist.” Franco’s movie is an account of the making of what’s called “the greatest bad movie ever made,” called “The Room“. The new film from Franco co-stars Dave Franco, so don’t be too surprised to see the host’s little brother make an appearance on SNL tonight. Franco has brought in film co-stars before on Saturday Night Live. Like in 2014, when James Franco hosted and Seth Rogen, his co-star from the highly controversial comedy, “The Interview“, appeared on stage with him during his SNL monologue.

Here’s an example of James Franco’s long SNL tenure. During Franco’s first time hosting Saturday Night Live in 2008, the cast did a sketch about jury selection for O.J. Simpson’s Vegas armed robbery and kidnapping trial. Now in 2017, Franco is back again and O.J. has finished serving his sentence and is, for the time being, a free man. A season later in 2009, James Franco was back to host the Christmas episode in December and in that same season, Franco made a special guest cameo in a brand new sketch that started in October, 2009 called “What’s Up With That?“, about the insane and highly musical BET talk show hosted by Diondre Cole played by Kenan Thompson. Perhaps with Franco back to host tonight, Thompson and the cast will revisit “What’s Up With That?“.

News items that may find their way into tonight’s Saturday Night Live include Senator Al Franken resigning from the United States Senate after non-stop sexual misconduct allegations. SNL has made mention of Franken’s indiscretions on Weekend Update, but so far, the show has yet to use featured cast member Alex Moffat’s expert Al Franken impression to address the story. That’s a waste of a great impersonation.

Also on the front pages this week which could make it into tonight’s SNL include the nearing special election where accused child molester Roy Moore is refusing to step down as the Republican nominee for the open U.S. Senate seat in what may become known as “the kid touching state”, Alabama. And of course, Christmas shopping, decorating, TV specials, and bake-off shows are everywhere to lend themselves to the SNL parody treatment.

In the first of the promos for tonight’s new episode of Saturday Night Live, we get a super-quick montage of the host’s previous SNL appearances from actor, poet, artist and dude James Franco. Next, we go outside the GE Building to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and ice skating rink to see Franco lace up his skates and take to the ice. Finally, James Franco is joined by his musical guest along with cast member Kate McKinnon, who is in the Christmas spirit, for a game of Rock, Paper….well, just watch it.

James Franco hosts a brand new Saturday Night Live with musical guest SZA tonight at 11:30pm on NBC. And next weekend, Kevin Hart hosts the mid-season finale of SNL with musical guests the Foo Fighters on December, 16th.

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