Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: July 11, 2020

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Live from New York via Houston, it’s a Saturday Night Live repeat tonight, hosted by Texans star defensive end J.J. Watt!

Desperate for sports to get underway? We’re still a few weeks away from the NBA getting started. Spring training is still going on in MLB. College football is figuring out ways to streamline their schedules and who knows what the NFL will look like in the pandemic era?

But as we wait to get into the full swing of corona-sports where it won’t just be the catcher wearing a mask in baseball, Saturday Night Live is doing their part with this evening’s repeat episode. Tonight, it’s the NFL on SNL with a show hosted by Pro Bowl defensive end for the Houston Texans, J.J. Watt.

J.J. Watt is a member of the Five-Timers Club. Wait. Not the Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club. But he’s been to the NFL Pro Bowl 5 times. He’s also a 3 time Defensive Player of the Year and a 2 time NFL sack leader. So, he may not have a lot of cred in the comedy world, he’s a pretty big deal in the pro football universe.

This episode was J.J. Watt’s first time hosting Saturday Night Live. And for some more points of reference for tonight’s SNL encore, it was Super Bowl Eve when this show first aired. It was the night before Super Bowl 54 between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. For those of you who saved the Super Bowl on your DVR to have some sports to watch, just in case of a global pandemic, SPOILER ALERT! The Chiefs came from behind to beat San Francisco by a score of 31 to 20.

The Super Bowl wasn’t the only big deal going on in the country when this episode of Saturday Night Live originally aired on February 1, 2020. The impeachment trial of President Donald “I Tweet While on the John” Trump had just come to a close in the United States Senate. The country was still waiting on a decision and the Senate’s vote to convict or not was still pending. But to throw in some more sports talk, like any pro wrestling show, we all knew the outcome of the impeachment trial before it happened.

The excitement of only the third presidential impeachment trial in our nation’s history had been kept to a dull roar. The GOP controlled Senate under the reigns of Moscow Mitch McConnell had kept witnesses from testifying, so there wasn’t much drama in Trump’s trial, especially when everyone knew he’d stay in office when it was all over anyway.

So, this repeat Saturday Night Live gave us “The Trial You Wish Had Happened” in the SNL – Cold Open. It was a fantasy sketch which gave us a version of Trump’s impeachment trial, we could only dream of including replacing Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who presided over the impeachment trial, with the star of the daytime courtroom reality series “Judge Mathis” himself, Judge Greg Mathis played by SNL cast member Kenan Thompson.

This evening’s SNL – Cold Open is hodge-podge of silliness along with a goofy potpourri of celebrity and political impressions by the Saturday Night Live cast including Kate McKinnon as South Carolina Senator Lindsey “Valerie Beauregard Matlock” Graham and Beck Bennett as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who wore a turtleneck to the trial. No, not a high-collared sweater. An actual turtle’s neck. Kudos to the SNL makeup department!

The SNL – Cold Open tonight also gives us cast members Cecily Strong as Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, Pete Davidson as Hunter Biden, son of former Veep Joe, Alex Moffat as Democratic impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff and for some reason, Kyle Mooney as Joe Pesci from “My Cousin Vinny.” Plus, it’s the return of Alec Baldwin as surprise witness Donald J. Trump who gets caught trying to “Weinstein” the judge. You’ll have to tune in to tonight’s SNL rerun to find out what that means.

Then comes J.J. Watt’s monologue portion of the show. We don’t want to say the monologue jokes were dumbed down for a defensive end playing the new position of “host”….so, we won’t say it. The SNL monologue is filled with jokes about NFL players being stupid, J.J.’s mom giving birth to 3 gigantic sons who all went on to play pro football (“Ouch! Right!?”) and kickers being effeminate. Yep. The monologue is pretty much standard issue equipment for a football player trying to do comedy. In fact, throughout the show, J.J. Watt makes a few jokes at the expense of gay people, but it’s all allowed and no penalty flags are thrown because J.J.’s such a nice guy.

A couple of times tonight, J.J. Watt plays himself in sketches and shorts. That’s par for the course when a popular athlete hosts Saturday Night Live. J.J. Watt was the first sportsman to host Saturday Night Live since Charles Barkley returned to host in 2018 for SNL – Season 43. It must be exhausting for the writers and director when an athlete hosts.

J.J. Watt plays the part of J.J. Watt in an EA Sports video games sketch where he’s in a studio recording his on-the-field dialogue for the upcoming of edition of “Madden NFL.” His lines are written from the point of view of J.J. being a has-been in the NFL. His avatar doesn’t have all the skills on the field that it used to in previous versions of the game. J.J. also plays J.J. in an SNL Short tonight which is a parody spot for “Oil of BROlay Eye Black” for football players. Oil of BROlay Eye Black isn’t gay, “it’s just gay enough.” #hilariousstraighthumor.

Our NFL Pro-Bowler host also plays a football player in another SNL Short tonight which is a parody of the football film “Rudy” called “Robby.” However in this version of the feel-good grid iron story, some players, led by J.J.’s character, aren’t so willing to give up their spot on the team for “Robby” who would guarantee a loss for Notre Dame.

The final SNL Short of the night is oddly prophetic because it’s a parody spot for the perfect pandemic product called “Food Dudes.” These are animatronic mannequins for when you want to order way more delivery food than just one person should enjoy. They take the embarrassment out of eating for two or three or four. And you know you’ve done this during the lock-down. Admit it!

In the sketches in tonight’s SNL repeat, host J.J. Watt plays a lot of characters perfect for man of his immense proportions. He plays a live-action version of the largely handsome Kristoff from “Frozen II” in sketch about the deleted scenes and songs from the animated hit. These scenes feature songs about everyone pretty much already knowing that Elsa is gay and the lack of diversity in the world of “Frozen” and “Frozen II.”

Our muscular host also plays a dad having the sex talk with his teenage son (Kyle Mooney) and turns his heart-to-heart into a humble brag. J.J. also plays the hot, eligible guy in a new edition of SNL‘s version of ABC’s “The Bachelor.” Fun Fact: Saturday Night Live is not legally allowed to use the actual name “The Bachelor“, so this in this edition of the sketch, it’s called “The Pilot Hunk.”

J.J.’s size is also put to good use when he plays Bigfoot in a sketch where the Sasquatch is introduced into proper, early 20th century British society. And finally, J.J. Watt’s comedic talents are on display when he plays a pizza delivery guy who of course, finds himself in a porn scene and then ends up having to explain to his boss why he never has the delivery money. Kenan Thompson is the saving grace of this final sketch of the night.

As mentioned earlier, the nation was waiting with un-bated breath for the result of President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial which had just ended and it was the lead story on tonight’s edition of Weekend Update. Anchorman Colin Jost summed up the country’s feeling about the impeachment trial perfectly when he said, “Well, the impeachment trial is basically over, is a sentence I could have used two weeks ago when the trial began.”

Michael Che also has a remark that makes even more sense today than it did when he said it back in February of this year when talking about the impeachment, when he said, “what better way to start Black History Month than to be failed by the justice system.” Che also added that he’s going to have to change political parties because of all the losing and as he put it, “I can’t be a Democrat and a Knicks fan.”

Weekend Update also covers stories including former Trump advisor John Bolton’s new book telling us about the President’s secrets, along with the Palestinians rejecting the peace plan devised by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, Senator Amy Klobuchar’s tater tot casserole, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo getting angry with an NPR reporter, Harvey Weinstein using a walker to get to court, Super Bowl 54, Krispy Kreme’s new Times Square store, and Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney wanting a boxing rematch 40 years after their last fight. Che says “it will be the first fight decided by natural causes.”

Recurring characters visiting the Weekend Update desk tonight include featured cast member Bowen Yang as Chinese Health Minister Chen Biao discussing China declaring the Coronavirus an official global emergency. We should have listened.

Plus, we get a new hilarious Weekend Update character on tonight’s SNL repeat. Ego Nwodim arrives as Dr. Angie Hynes, Professor of African-American Studies, to kick off Black History Month on Saturday Night Live. The good doctor has a different way of looking at Black History Month. She talks about figures in her life who are now history to her.

For those of you really into variety show promos, we have the ones for tonight’s Saturday Night Live rerun available below for you to enjoy. In the first one, cast member Kyle Mooney is giving host J.J. Watt a tour of Studio 8-H and the tour turns into a game of “Think Fast”, then the game turns violent. It’s all good. The promo ends in a big hug between the two.

In the next promo, Double J, W-A-Double T is joined by musical guest Luke Combs and cast member Aidy Bryant who deems this “Big Boy Week” on SNL. Aidy talks about the “big game” happening that weekend between the “Turtles and the Twelves”. They probably should leave the football talk to J.J. Watt who is feeling a little low about this SNL episode being his Super Bowl, instead of the Super Bowl being his Super Bowl.

J.J. Watt hosts an encore presentation of Saturday Night Live from this past February with musical guest, CMA and Billboard Award winner Luke Combs at 11:30pm et on NBC!

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Ernie Tripper

Ernie Tripper