Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: May 18, 2019

Tonight, Paul Rudd returns to Saturday Night Live to host the SNL – Season 44 Finale!

The first 44 years of Saturday Night Live comes to a close tonight with veteran host Paul Rudd, and according to the SNL promos which you can watch below, this should be the best season finale all year. This will be Paul Rudd’s 4th time hosting Saturday Night Live which puts him one show away from joining the prestigious Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club. Seeing how he is an SNL favorite, being both a regular host and guest star, Rudd should be back very soon in the next season or two to pick up his Five-Timers Club smoking jacket. The nice thing about Paul Rudd hosting Saturday Night Live is that you can use a photo of him on SNL from as far back as 11 years ago and it still looks current since the man never ages!

Paul Rudd’s history with SNL began over a decade ago, on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 during SNL – Season 34 when he hosted for the very first time. To give you some perspective, Paul Rudd was promoting his comedy movie, “Role Models” with Seann William Scott (Stifler from the “American Pie” comedies.) Back then, cast members included names like Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Bill Hader, Darrell Hammond and Seth Meyers. It was also Amy Poehler’s last season and Bobby Moynihan’s first.

It was during his premiere SNL episode that Paul Rudd helped to debut a sketch that would become a very well-known recurring classic in SNL history, “The Vogelchecks.” The sketch was intended to “shock” viewers by portraying an overly affectionate family where loved ones use their tongues to express their affection for each other and feed each other baby bird style. This always happens to the stunned surprise of someone that one of the Vogelchecks has brought home for a holiday dinner or some other special occasion. The sketch always goes for cheap laughs by having male cast members along with host, engage in man-on-man PDAs. Even though 2019 is suppose to be a more “woke” age, don’t expect SNL to be overly enlightened enough tonight to scrap the sketch all together. “The Vogelchecks” should be back tonight and early in the show with all new ways to “gross out” the audience by showing two men kissing.

The then-first-time host Paul Rudd would be back later in the season making his first SNL cameo appearance in the historic SNL – Season 34 finale musical sketch “Goodnight Saigon” where host Will Ferrell would lead a stage full of famous names in a rendition of Billy Joel’s classic Vietnam anthem “Goodnight Saigon.”

Rudd had another SNL cameo before he hosted his second time when he appeared on the show in March, 2010 during SNL – Season 35 when his co-star in the quirky comedy “Dinner for Schmucks“, Zach Galifianakis hosted Saturday Night Live. His cameo saw him as a guest on the Kenan Thompson led sketch, “What’s Up With That?“, oddly enough, alongside the NY Times’ Frank Rich.

The soon-to-be movie star who would eventually go on to be known as “Ant-Man” to Marvel Comics audiences, returned to host SNL on December 11, 2010 during SNL – Season 36 to plug his romantic comedy, “How Do You Know,” a rom-com that ranks just outside the Top 150 Grossing Rom-Coms All-Time and it ranks 18th on Paul Rudd’s career film hits. This SNL appearance didn’t translate to box office receipts. The romantic comedy movie was expected to do a lot better with rom-com fans considering the top-shelf casting including co-star Reese Witherspoon along with the red-hot Owen Wilson and screen legend Jack Nicholson.

Next up on Paul Rudd’s Saturday Night Live resume was another cameo in 2011 during SNL – Season 37 when Jason Segel hosted the show. Segel and Rudd had starred together in the comedy short, “Jason Segel & Paul Rudd Meet Rush” about two fans of the Canadian rock band Rush, going backstage to meet their heroes. Rudd came back to appear in another round of  “The Vogelchecks.”

The last time Paul Rudd hosted SNL, it was Saturday, December 7th, 2013 during SNL – Season 39. During this episode, Rudd was excited to be promoting his comedy sequel, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.” Of course, it was natural for Paul to be excited because his “Anchorman” co-stars SNL alum Will Ferrell, David Koechner and Steve Carell showed up during his monologue. Ferrell and Koechner reappeared later that same night in the “Bill Brasky” sketch.

Cameos have always been a big part of the nights when Paul Rudd hosts. Besides his “Anchorman” co-stars, Justin Timberlake, Chef Mario Batali, Sir Paul McCartney (a Paul Rudd musical guest who took the stage during Rudd’s monologue and appeared in an SNL – Digital Short) and former SNL cast member Bill Hader have been among the other big names that have shown up out of nowhere while Paul Rudd is working at Saturday Night Live. Add that to how Saturday Night Live always pulls out all the stops on season finale night with plenty of guest stars, mainly to fill up the star-studded SNL season finale after-party, and tonight’s Saturday Night Live season-ender should be one to remember. We may even get some of Paul Rudd’s superhero pals from “Avengers: Endgame” tonight, which is Paul Rudd’s latest film that he’ll be promoting, even though the Marvel Comic Book adventure film doesn’t really need it. The final chapter of “The Avengers” featuring Paul Rudd as the shrinking (and sometimes growing gigantically) superhero Ant-Man, has soared past the $700 million mark domestically and has reached beyond $2.5 billion worldwide.

Since SNL is known for gathering all its favorites for the last show of the season, it seems like a safe bet that Alec Baldwin will return tonight as well to once again play President Trump. This will most likely be in the SNL – Cold Open where the topic could be anything from the upcoming made-up war with Iran, to Trump’s tax returns and his major financial losses in the 80’s and 90’s to Donald Trump Jr.’s subpoena to appear before the Senate Intel Committee to the extreme laws banning abortion in states across the country. We can expect these archaic and dangerous laws violating Roe vs. Wade which are popping up across the country to be a huge source of material tonight for SNL. The writers’ room will definitely be turning this serious subject into laughs tonight in either the Cold Open, sketches, SNL – Digital Shorts or on Weekend Update, or all of the above.

Once we get past the topic of women having their rights shit on across the nation, other topics that could show on up the final SNL of the season includes Felicity Huffman pleading guilty in the national college admissions scandal and prosecutors recommending that she spend 4 months in prison for her part in the caper, the New York Yankees’ fans threatening a boycott if the team doesn’t reinstate Kate Smith’s “God Bless America” at games, the PBS cartoon “Arthur” now featuring a character “Mr. Ratburn” coming out as gay and having a same-sex wedding, children’s favorite Bill Nye the Science Guy dropping F-Bombs on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” while discussing climate change, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos unveiling his new moonship, Party City closing stores everywhere because of a global helium shortage making their Mylar balloons too expensive, the White House misspelling the name Red Sox (Socks) on its official welcome, Trump BFF Macho Vlad Putin scoring 8 goals in an exhibition hockey game, the NBA playoffs and Popeye’s Chicken serving heart-shaped biscuits, you know, so customers can show the paramedics where it hurts after eating there.

One thing that would have been perfect for tonight’s new live SNL would have been “Game of Thrones” and its continuity problems in the final season with modern coffee cups showing up on set along with previously amputated hands reappearing. This could have meant for a fun sketch featuring the film flub problem reaching ridiculous proportions, but that’s only if SNL hadn’t just done that last weekend during its “Wait a Second. That Shouldn’t Be There!” sketch where “GoT” was squeezed in as an after-thought to an already written sketch.

As promised, we have the promos for tonight’s brand new Saturday Night Live finale episode below for you to enjoy. In the first one, we go to Twitter where @nbcsnl tweeted out a promo featuring host Paul Rudd along with cast members Ego Nwodim and Mikey Day joining the host in a non-musical dance party.

The next promo is a montage of Paul Rudd’s previous three appearances as a host on SNL. The 15 second hype package shows Rudd as a sexy Santa Claus, posing nude, in drag, singing & dancing and of course, as a member of “The Vogelcheck Family.

Next is a sketch promo taking place in the SNL Studio 8-H famed bleachers, featuring Paul Rudd doing his best to accept a special assignment from cast member Beck Bennett. Fortunately, SNL featured cast member Heidi Gardner is there to save the day, even if it interrupts her private time.

Finally, Paul Rudd is joined by musical guest DJ Khaled and cast member Cecily Strong. DJ Khaled is someone who’s not happy with just one take and we can expect this SNL finale to be the best, or at the very least, not bad.

Saturday Night Live wraps up SNL – Season 44 tonight with an all-new show, live across all time zones! The SNL – Season Finale is hosted by Paul Rudd with musical guest DJ Khaled at 11:30pm et on the NBC Television Network!

Read more comedy news.