Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: March 17, 2018

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Tonight, former SNL cast member Bill Hader returns to Studio 8-H at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to host a new St. Patrick’s Day episode of Saturday Night Live!

Bill Hader may be known for his films “Superbad“, “The Skeleton Twins” and “Trainwreck” or his voice work in “Inside Out“, “The Angry Birds Movie“, “Bob’s Burgers” and “South Park” where he also worked as a writer and consultant, but his most famous work was as a cast member on Saturday Night Live for 8 seasons from 2005 through 2013. Tonight, Hader returns to host SNL for his second time tonight at 11:30pm on NBC. His first hosting gig after graduating from SNL, was in 2014, during Saturday Night Live – Season 40.

Tonight, Bill Hader will be promoting his new HBO dark comedy series “Barry” where he plays Barry Berkman, a low-level, depressed mob hitman who heads to Los Angeles to carry out a contract on a young actor and after following his target into an acting class, Barry gets bit by the acting bug and decides to begin a new career as an actor while still trying to juggle his mob life at the same time. “Barry” premieres Sunday, March 25th at 10:30pm on HBO.

During his time on Saturday Night Live, starting in Season 31 and going through Season 38, Bill Hader established plenty of memorable SNL characters, some of which may see new life on tonight’s show when he hosts. One of his goals when joining Saturday Night Live back in ’05, was to become a strong cast utility player like the sketch legend that Hader calls his hero, Phil Hartman. Hader’s SNL characters included, Devin of The Californians sketches, Greg the Alien- the extraterrestrial who tries to disguise himself as a human sportscaster and does it poorly, elderly local news reporter Herb Welch, Tony Dinato- one of the “Two Gay Guys from New Jersey” (with Fred Armisen), and Vinny Vedecci- the chain-smoking host of La Rivista Della Televisione who only speaks Italian and whose conversations with American entertainment stars run into problems when things get lost in translation. Hader also did plenty of celebrity impressions on Saturday Night Live including impersonations of Al Pacino, political strategist James Carville, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange and horror and film legend Vincent Price.

Of course, many fans of Bill Hader’s SNL work would choose his Weekend Update recurring character, Stefon the New York City club kid, as their absolute favorite Bill Hader creation. Originally written by Hader and comedian and SNL writer John Mulaney, Stefon had the inside scoop on NYC’s hottest and most exclusive nightspots and he was also madly in love with then-Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers. On Bill Hader’s final episode of Saturday Night Live, Stefon fulfilled his dream of becoming “Mrs. Seth Meyers”. Hopefully, Hader’s appearance as host tonight leads to some other former SNL cast member drop-ins and of course, there could be riots in the streets if Stefon doesn’t show up on tonight’s Weekend Update segment.

As for what else might be SNL material tonight, there’s so much President Trump news, from the upcoming Stormy Daniels 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson getting told “You’re fired!” to Donny Trump Jr’s divorce, it would seem almost impossible for Alec Baldwin not to be back for tonight’s SNL as our beleaguered Commander-in-Chief. Other things going on which could be infused into this evening’s show, either in sketches or on Weekend Update include the very drunken St. Patrick’s Day celebrations going on across the country today, the NCAA’s March Madness tournament (a possible Greg the Alien appearance?), Dr. Stephen Hawking’s passing, Kim Jong-un’s willingness to negotiate, the return of “American Idol“, Toys R Us closing all its stores and the OJ Simpson confession special.

The first of three promos released for tonight’s new SNL is a montage of Bill Hader moments from his years on Saturday Night Live. The second features cast members Pete Davidson and Chris Redd, (who have become quite the collaboration team on SNL lately) as Bill Hader super fans who stalk him as he tries to prepare to host. By the way, be sure to catch the pipes on cast member Melissa Villaseñor who sings during this promo and watch for an appearance by “Melvin” who may be Chris Redd’s actual dad. Finally, in the third SNL promo for this week, Bill Hader is joined by musical guest Arcade Fire….or is it “The” Arcade Fire? Watch the promos below to find out. Plus, you can also see the trailer for Bill Hader’s new HBO series “Barry” below as well.

Bill Hader comes home to Saturday Night Live to host a new SNL live across all time zones with musical guest Arcade Fire, starting tonight at 11:30pm on NBC.

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper