Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: November 16, 2019

at
Share This Post

SNL is back live tonight with international superstar Harry Styles as both the host and musical guest!

After a week off, Saturday Night Live is bringing us new episodes again for Season 45. This week, we’ve got a first time host, Harry Styles, who just happens to also be tonight’s musical guest. Harry is a good pick for an SNL first-timer. He not only sings, but acts as well, along with being fashion influencer and the breakout solo star from his teen idol boy band, One Direction.

Harry Styles puts himself in the Saturday Night Live history books tonight as the 28th performer to serve as both host and musical guest on the same episode. He’s also the 2nd entertainer to pull off the SNL double-duty assignment this season alone. Chance the Rapper did it just 3 weeks ago on the season’s 4th episode.

Most Saturday Night Live hosts have some project they’re willing to go through 90 minutes of live television with a high risk level of embarrassing themselves in order to promote. Harry Styles is no different. This evening he’ll be plugging his second studio album, “Fine Line.” The highly anticipated album is set to drop on Friday, December 13th (lucky), followed by Harry’s “Love On Tour” to promote it. The 63 date tour will kick off April 15, 2020 in Birmingham, England, make its way through Europe and North America (with stops in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, San Diego, and Las Vegas among others) and then wrap up in Mexico City on October 3rd.

It’s been reported that Harry Styles is likely to perform his new hit single, “Lights Up” from the upcoming “Fine Line” album as one of the two songs he’ll do tonight on Saturday Night Live while wearing his musical guest hat. However, it couldn’t be confirmed that he’d be doing the song while shirtless like he did in the official video. The erotic style of the “Lights Up” video may make its way into the comedy on tonight’s new SNL with perhaps a “Behind the Music” sketch featuring the making of the video where a shirtless Harry is touched and groped by a variety of characters more exaggerated than the actual ones in the video.

Harry Styles has SNL experience listed on his show biz resume. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest as both a solo artist and with his group One Direction. “1-D” performed on Saturday Night Live three times before breaking up in 2016. It’s never clear exactly how well the One Direction lads are getting along since that parted ways professionally, so who knows if any of the other members will make cameos tonight. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the other members of the group were in the audience ready to ask about a reunion during Harry’s monologue. It’s a gimmick that SNL has done in the past.

One Direction made their SNL debut in April of 2012 during SNL – Season 37 with host Sofia Vergara (“Modern Family“). They were back a season later in 2013 with host Paul Rudd (everything) and their last Saturday Night Live appearance as a group came in 2014 when One Direction was the musical guest for the SNL – Season 40 Christmas show hosted by Amy Adams (haven’t seen her lately).

As a solo artist, Harry Styles performed as the SNL musical guest in April, 2017 to promote his debut solo self-titled album “Harry Styles.” The host that night was SNL alum, Tonight Show host and boy band aficionado Jimmy Fallon. Besides doing two numbers, Harry also performed in sketches that night. He appeared during Fallon’s monologue, played a soldier in a Civil War sketch and social media loved his not-so-great Mick Jagger impression during a “Celebrity Family Feud” sketch. His ability to just go with it, no matter how silly the sketches were, secured his return as an SNL host one day. And that day is tonight at 11:30pm et on NBC.

If we speculate on some of the news headline subject matter that will get used in this evening’s new live SNL, the Trump Impeachment inquiry with this week’s public hearings has to hit the top of the list. A good bet is that tonight’s SNL – Cold Open will take place at one of the Congressional public hearings. It’s always a great chance for the Saturday Night Live cast to exercise their political impersonation muscles. Also, it’s been a few weeks since Alec Baldwin has appeared as President Donald “Quid Pro No!!” Trump, so a return tonight wouldn’t be out of the question.

Donald Trump Sr. isn’t the only member of the First Family making headlines this week. Weekend Update is sure to take a jibe at Donald Trump Jr.’s inflated book sales being attributed to his cheating by way of bulk sales. Cast members Mikey Day and Alex Moffat, please stand by as DTJ and Eric Trump.

Another direction the SNL – Cold Open could go in is the conviction of Trump associate and professional liar Roger Stone. He was just found guilty of lying to and obstructing Congress. It would be a great time to see Steve Martin who’s played Roger Stone on SNL before, return as the man with the Nixon tattoo this weekend.

There’s also news from the 2020 Presidential race that could be used for material by the SNL writers tonight including former Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick jumping in the race for the Democratic nomination, along with the persistent rumors that Hillary “I’ve had my turn and I want your turn too” Clinton is going to run for President yet again, and Mayor Pete’s surge in the Iowa Democratic polls which is good news for cast member Colin Jost and the one impression he does.

Other things that may appear on the show in the form of sketches, shorts or Update jokes include the launch of Disney+ with disclaimers warning viewers about culturally & racially insensitive moments in their classic cartoons, the Japanese carp with a human face that’s creeping out social media, World Diabetes Day, SNL cast member Pete Davidson’s latest public celebrity dating moment with the newest woman to fall under his spell, supermodel Kaia Gerber, the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford, and a moment from “Thursday Night Football” which will live on in NFL infamy, when Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett yanked the helmet off of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and then clobbered the QB in his exposed head with his own helmet. C’mon Man!!

We’re also getting closer to our Thanksgiving Day holiday, so we can expect to start seeing some T-Giving inspired sketches on tonight’s new show as well.

The promos for tonight’s all new Saturday Night Live are available below and they begin with an SNL tribute to tonight’s host and musical guest Harry Styles. You’ll notice that the clips are from a lot of the same sketches. There wasn’t much from Harry’s time on SNL to pull from that would fill over a minute and a half.

In the next released promo, cast member Kenan Thompson is welcoming host and musical guest Harry Styles back to the famed SNL Studio 8-H for some “sweater weather high jinks”. Harry says he’s down for anything and ends up in a big pile of “classic fall fun.”

Harry Styles host a new episode of SNL with musical guest Harry Styles, tonight at 11:30pm et and live across all time zones on NBC!

And next week, Saturday Night Live welcomes home favorite son Will Ferrell to host an all-new SNL!!

Read more comedy news.

Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper