Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: November 14, 2020

at
Share This Post

After a record-breaking start to the season, Saturday Night Live is off tonight and airing a repeat of the SNL season premiere hosted by Chris Rock!

All good things must come to an end and you can add Saturday Night Live‘s historic start to its 46th season to that list. SNL began the new season with 6 brand new, live shows in a row. Something Saturday Night Live had never done in its 46 year history. The original plan was to start the season with 5 new shows. That plan quickly changed when someone at 30 Rock looked at the calendar and saw that 5 shows only took them up to Election Day, and not beyond it. A 6th show was added so that SNL and its writers and cast could capitalize on the election results.

Now those 6 new shows are over and we’re back to SNL reruns for who knows how long. With 6 shows in the can, Saturday Night Live has enough repeats for the next month and a half if they wanted. Those repeats start this evening with a replay of the first show of the new SNL season. It’s the season premiere hosted by former SNL cast member and superstar comedian Chris Rock. This evening’s Chris Rock-hosted SNL originally aired on October 3, 2020 and it kicked off the 46th season of Saturday Night Live on NBC.

Tonight’s SNL replay was a homecoming for Chris Rock. He joined SNL back in 1990 and was part of the cast for only 3 seasons. Chris got his start on Saturday Night Live the same season that Chris Farley, David Spade and Adam Sandler joined the cast to name a few. And like Farley and Sandler, Chris Rock was also fired from the show. Leaving SNL didn’t hinder Chris Rock’s career at all. He went on to do iconic comedy specials for HBO and Netflix and won two Emmy Awards for his specials over the years. His third Emmy Award came for writing on HBO’s “The Chris Rock Show” in the 90’s.

After a successful movie career that included films like “Beverly Hills Cop II“, “Boomerang“, “Beverly Hills Ninja“, “Dr. Doolittle“, the “Grown Ups” movies, “Top Five“, and the “Madagascar” animated features, Chris Rock found himself back on television in 2020. Chris returned to Saturday Night Live to promote his starring role in the latest installment of the “Fargo” anthology series on FX.

Naturally, the Chris Rock fans of the world were excited to see him back on SNL to host for the third time, but there was extra excitement in the air for the Saturday Night Live episode re-airing tonight. The new season was finally here. Chris Rock was back on SNL where many of us first became acquainted with him. Jim Carrey was joining the cast on a limited basis to play former Vice President and presidential candidate Joe Biden along with former cast member Maya Rudolph playing Biden’s running mate Senator Kamala Harris. And maybe most importantly, the show was back in NBC’s Studio 8-H at 30 Rock in New York City after ending the previous season in lockdown and doing the show from home.

The SNL – Cold Open also brought back Alec Baldwin as its resident President Trump in tonight’s repeat. The opener was a replay of the first debate between Donald J. Trump (Alec Baldwin) and VP Joe Biden (Jim Carrey). This episode originally aired when no one thought there would be a second debate because the first one was such a disaster and another downturn for the sitting President.

Cast member Beck Bennett opened the brand new SNL – Season 46 by playing the moderator and ringmaster of this circus debate, Chris Wallace from Fox News who lost all control of the entire evening. SNL fans were used to seeing Alec Baldwin play President #45, but when Jim Carrey took the stage as the former Vice-President, the in-studio audience made up of NYC first responders loved him in his aviator sunglasses. And the crowd was ecstatic when Carrey’s Biden used a real Joe Biden line from the actual debate, saying, “Will you just shut up, man!?” to President Trump.

This opening sketch ran a little long by regular SNL standards, but it’s hard to blame the writers and Saturday Night Live for wanting to stretch the opener after landing Jim Carrey. Unfortunately, tonight’s SNL Cold Open doesn’t know when to stop. Although, it had some cameos that audience loved including Maya Rudolph as a scolding Senator Kamala Harris and also an appearance by heartthrob Harry Styles gets thrown in the mix as well.

By the time Maya pops in, the sketch had already run way too long and tried to cover too much of the real debate material, to continue being entertaining. The end of the debate sketch just went to a bizarre place and got too silly even for SNL. Baldwin, Carrey and Rudolph even botch the key phrase to open the show by saying, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” at 3 different times.

After SNL announcer Darrell Hammond reads a seemingly unending list of cast members names in the intro, mainly because this is now the largest cast in the history of the show, he finally got around to introducing tonight’s host Chris Rock.

The former SNL cast member turned comedy superstar immediately brought up President Trump being diagnosed with Covid and that he was hospitalized that weekend by saying, “President Trump’s in the hospital from Covid, and I just want to say my heart goes out to Covid.”

Chris Rock focused on the pandemic that had dominated our year so far by talking about how Covid had ruined all our plans. The virus was the main theme of Rock’s SNL monologue. He discusses the strain of the lockdown on couples’ relationships, how it’s time to renegotiate our relationship with the government and the really lax guidelines on who can be elected as our Commander-in-Chief, saying, “if anybody can be the president, then ANYBODY can be the president.” He finished the monologue with jokes about the election and the current state of our news anchors. Then our host Chris Rock wraps up tonight’s monologue with a quote from the distinguished 20th century man of letters, James Baldwin.

Looking at the sketches in tonight’s SNL rerun, the opening sketch deals with a superspreader event and brings back a fan favorite premise. The sketch opens as a news report about a Covid outbreak at Pittsburgh’s Federal building in the “Legal Change of Name Office”. You all know how this one goes, the reporter interviews several people who were in the office at the time and who have really unfortunate sounding names. Cast member Mikey Day is the reporter talking to people with names like “Edith Puthie” and “Mike Litt”. You’ll want to stick around to hear cast member Kenan Thompson’s character’s name.

“NBA Bubble” is a bizarre sketch tonight where women are auditioning to secure their way into the NBA Covid-free bubble. It’s a chance for “first wives, second wives, mistresses and side-pieces” to get to sequester with the very famous and very wealthy NBA players. It’s also an opportunity for the audience to see the new featured cast members who joined SNL this season, if only for a second of stage time including Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson and Andrew Dismukes along with a sketch appearance by tonight’s musical guest Megan Thee Stallion.

Perhaps the worst sketch of the night is the one called “Future Ghost.” It starts off in the year 2000 in the basement of a teenager named Zack played by cast member Kyle Mooney who’s enjoying playing the Tony Hawk video game “Pro Skater 2“. Suddenly Chris Rock appears in a cloud of smoke as a white-haired ghost from the future all dressed in white. Rock does nothing to make this character seem futuristic or scary, the things you’d expect from a “future ghost”. It might as well have been Chris Rock magically appearing in this sketch.

The ghost arrives to show young Zack his future 20 years ahead and he learns he’s a fatter version of himself, but still in his mom’s basement playing video games. Instead of being shocked or motivated to change his future, Zack is thrilled with the life-like graphics of 2020 era video games. He can’t wait to be someone still in his mom’s basement playing those radical new games.

As mentioned, the host puts nothing into this sketch. Chris Rock is going through his lines like it’s a table-read and Kyle Mooney’s teenage character is doing such a strange, over-the-top voice (which sounds nothing like a teenager), you can barely understand a word he’s saying. Zack sounds like someone who just arrived in this country and is struggling to learn English. The audience is missing what are suppose to be punchlines all throughout this sketch, but they can’t understand what Kyle is saying. Then for no reason the teenage character starts singing. It’s a funny enough premise with a great ending to the sketch, but it scores a zero in execution.

There are 3 SNL Shorts in tonight’s repeat episode. They begin with a rap music video featuring cast members Chris Redd, Pete Davidson Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, tonight’s musical guest Megan Thee Stallion and host Chris Rock. The romantic song is called “Bottom of Your Face” and the lyrics talk about that new enticing feeling that developed during the worldwide pandemic about wanting to see what’s behind a person’s facial covering and not knowing what’s waiting for you under that mask.

The second short of the night is the absolute highlight of this episode of SNL. It’s even worth sitting through the “Future Ghost” sketch to watch. It’s featured cast member Chloe Fineman in a parody spot for “The Drew Barrymore Show“. And Chloe nails this celebrity impression. She nails it so hard, it can never be unnailed again. (wait. what?) This is one for the SNL record books along side Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery, Kenan Thompson as Big Papi David Oritz and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin as one of the best Saturday Night Live celebrity impressions of all time. Stay up for this one. As a bonus you also get Chloe as Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, along with cast members Alex Moffat and Kenan Thompson as Drew’s ex Tom Green and Billy Porter respectively.

Finally, the third pre-produced SNL Short of the night will remind you of the SNL At Home remotely produced episodes which ended last season. It’s from the “Stunt Performers Association of America“. The short involves Hollywood stunt performers that have been out of work due to the Covid19 virus shutting down production of all movie and television projects. It’s presented as a PSA that turns into an “epic virtual fight” where stunt men and women are in a brawl while still being in seclusion from each other.

The absolute very best part of this short is the introduction of two new characters from cast members Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant. They play two stunt performers who “stunt double for villains in children’s comedies”. Karen Raniere (McKinnon) is a professional “Faller Downer” and Guff Burthardt (Bryant) is always cast as a “Female Goon.”

Every time your kids turn on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel and you see some exaggerated slapstick happening on a live-action show, it’s probably Karen and Guff you see getting kicked in the crotch or getting thrown down a flight of stairs for the enjoyment of your kids. Once we get a vaccine and start going to movies again, your children will appreciate the women who make their comedies so funny by getting “kicked into a dumpster by a cow” or “farting from being hit in the head” all for “the purposes of children’s comedy”. And they’re not faking those farts. Hopefully, we’ll see Karen & Guff again on SNL.

On tonight’s repeat, it’s the first edition of Weekend Update with Colin Jost & Michael Che after a long summer hiatus and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the funny news segment. President Trump had just been diagnosed with the Covid19 virus and Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden had their first, disastrous debate just days before Jost and Che went on the air with tonight’s season premiere episode.

Jost describes what it was like getting this news the day before they came back on the air after 4 months off. In the meantime, Che cuts right to the heart of the matter and explains why Trump contracting what could be a lethal virus is funny. As Jost moves on to other news items, the camera cuts back to Che who’s still wrestling with the irony (and comedy) of Donald Trump being infected by the virus that he dismissed and said would disappear like a miracle. That’s the same virus that killed well over 240 thousand Americans while Trump was flaunting not wearing a mask and hosting super-spreader events at the White House and around the country.

Other topics Jost and Che cover on Weekend Update include 75% of the LGBTQ community supporting Joe Biden, the NBA Covid bubble, Mitch McConnell and the Senate confirming SCOTUS pick Amy Coney Barrett, the Tennessee Titans Coronavirus infection, diversity in corporate executive boards, a major salmonella warning, Vin Diesel releasing dance music, a new pogo-stick world record, and a Canadian woman arrested for illegally importing bull semen.

On the first Weekend Update segment of the new SNL – Season 46, the writers decided to bring back featured cast member Bowen Yang’s stereotypical impression of a Chinese person with his character “Chen Biao” the Chinese Foreign Trade Minister. On tonight’s SNL, Chen Biao discusses President Trump’s proposed American ban on the Chinese video-share service TikTok. Let’s go ahead and add this character to other stereotypical ones that in years from now, we can’t believe we thought was okay to do,  like Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles” and Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Cast member Aidy Bryant wraps up this edition of Weekend Update with a return as “7th Grade Travel Expert Carrie Krum.” She talks about her summer vacation where her older brother shot her twice with a paintball gun. Carrie tells the audience all about vacationing at home during the pandemic. “And Michael…Michael…Michael”….please everyone enjoy this rare Aidy Bryant sighting during SNL – Season 46. After this, Little Baby Aidy will be off to Portland, Oregon to shoot the brand new season of her Hulu comedy, “Shrill.” But don’t worry, Aidy won’t be getting into trouble for missing some shows early in the new season. SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels is also the EP on Aidy’s show “Shrill“, so she’s got a producer’s note to miss work.

The promos for tonight’s repeat SNL episode are below for you to check out before the show starts this evening. In the first one, we revisit Jim Carrey and Maya Rudolph prepping for what would become an unprecedented 6 show run on SNL as Presidential candidate (now President-Elect) Joe Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris of California, the future Vice-President-Elect. We see them getting into their wigs, makeup, aviator sunglasses and their Washington DC power suits to portray the most important political couple of the 21st century so far.

In the second promo released for SNL‘s season premiere episode re-airing tonight, host Chris Rock is joined by musical guest Megan Thee Stallion. They’re both showing off their custom PPE. Are you down with PPE? Yeah, you know me. Also, SNL is very grateful that Chris Rock and Megan Thee Stallion are wearing masks. Not for Covid19 safety, but because of Megan’s potty mouth.

Chris Rock brings the pain to a replay of the Saturday Night Live season premiere tonight with musical guest Megan Thee Stallion. This evening’s SNL repeat begins at 11:30pm et and it airs on NBC!

Read more comedy news.

Ernie Tripper

Ernie Tripper