Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: April 14, 2018

Former SNL writer and current comedy superstar John Mulaney returns to Studio 8-H to host a new Saturday Night Live!

When it comes to a list of goals for any comedian, John Mulaney has already achieved many of them. Tonight, he crosses one more off the list when he hosts Saturday Night Live at 11:30pm on NBC. Mulaney is a first time host, the 10th this season alone, however he’s no stranger to the workings of Saturday Night Live. He was a writer on the show for six seasons, beginning in 2008 when he auditioned to be a cast member, but ended up in the writers’ room. His SNL writing gig earned him four Emmy nominations as part of Saturday Night Live‘s writing ensemble and he took home a Primetime Emmy Award in 2011 for his work on the Season 36 finale hosted by Justin Timberlake. Also during his SNL years, John Mulaney would appear occasionally as a special correspondent on Weekend Update with a segment where he talked about things he was excited about called, “I Love It!

Of course, the thing that John Mulaney is best known for co-creating on Saturday Night Live is Bill Hader’s Weekend Update character, Stefon the Club Kid. Mulaney and Hader developed the character with Mulaney putting his jokes to Hader’s spot-on delivery. The reason Bill Hader cracked up so much while performing the character is because John Mulaney would change jokes at the last minute to catch Hader off guard while on live television. Stefon recently made a reappearance on WU when Bill Hader hosted SNL last month and you probably remember John Mulaney showing up on the set as Stefon’s attorney, “Shy,” who is also a conceptual piss artist.

John Mulaney will be hosting Saturday Night Live tonight to promote his brand new Netflix comedy special, “John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City” which begins streaming Tuesday, May 1st. This will be Mulaney’s 4th hour special and his second done exclusively for Netflix. Some of Mulaney’s other resume highlights include creating his own sitcom on FOX called “Mulaney” which ran for 13 episodes during the 2014 – 2015 TV season, writing for the Saturday Night Live: 40th Anniversary Special (SNL:40), writing for the 75th Annual Golden Globes, writing for Documentary Now! on IFC, writing for the hit NBC variety show, Marty & Maya, and writing with Seth Meyers for the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner hosted by Meyers and which is now infamous for being credited with launching Donald J. Trump’s political career. The reality show host / businessman was extremely butt-hurt from the roasting he took by Meyers and President Obama. And since he couldn’t take a joke, he decided to run for President, so that the entire country would be forced to take a one instead.

Mulaney has also hosted the Film Independent Spirit Awards two years in a row with his writing and comedy team partner Nick Kroll. The two also worked together to create the characters George St. Geegland (Mulaney) and Gil Faizon (Kroll), two senior citizen lifelong New Yorkers who are crotchety about everything and also try to prank unsuspecting guests with “too much tuna” on their lunch plates. The act became popular on Nick Kroll’s Comedy Central series, Kroll Show and went on to become the hit Broadway sensation, “Oh, Hello“, with sold out shows during its entire run in 2016 to 2017. Some of the special guests that Mulaney and Kroll pranked with “too much tuna” live on a Broadway stage included Katie Couric, Alan Alda, Will Ferrell, John Oliver, Conan O’Brien, Tina Fey, Katy Perry, Stephen Colbert, Martin Short, Judd Apatow and David Letterman, plus dozens more. “Oh, Hello” was so successful on Broadway that performances were filmed for its own special which is still available on Netflix. So as you can see, John Mulaney, at the young age of 35, really has very few comedy mountains left to climb.

Some of topics covered by the news networks and discussed in office places everywhere this week which may be crafted into sketches and Weekend Update punchlines include Mark Zuckerberg appearing before an aged Senate committee (perfect material for an SNL cold open,) Paul Ryan announcing his retirement from Congress, and Bill Cosby’s continuing legal battles. Plus, as usual there’s enough President Trump material to fill 5 full shows tonight, including the raid on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office, the audiotapes that may emerge from that search, James Comey’s tell-all book, the bombing of Syria without Congressional approval, and the doorman who was alleged paid off to keep mum about the rumor that Trump has an illegitimate child, the result of an affair with a building housekeeper. The doorman, the maid or even the alleged illegitimate child would all make perfect walk-on characters for Weekend Update tonight.

In the promos for tonight’s new SNL which will be live across all American time zones, John Mulaney overlooks the Manhattan skyline as informs viewers that he’s the SNL host who can do it all. Keep your eyes on his feet. In the next set, Mulaney is joined by musical guest Jack White and cast member Aidy Bryant where they walk us through the process of a Saturday Night Live promo and Aidy puts a vicious John Mulaney rumor to rest. And as a bonus, we’re throwing in a Weekend Update segment released on the Saturday Night Live YouTube channel, from SNL – Season 36 in 2010 where then-anchorman Seth Meyers throws it to John Mulaney for an installment of  “I Love It!“.

John Mulaney returns home to host a brand new Saturday Night Live tonight with musical guest Jack White at 11:30pm on NBC.

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