Who’s Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: August 18, 2018

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Chance the Rapper hosts tonight’s Saturday Night Live repeat from Season 43 while we get our first major update on SNL- Season 44!

The SNL episode selected to re-air tonight at 11:30pm on NBC is one of the better reviewed shows from this past season. It stars first-time host Chance the Rapper and its original air date was November 18, 2017. But before we look back at this show from last season, some news was announced earlier this week regarding the upcoming season of Saturday Night Live, premiering later this year on NBC.

When Saturday Night Live returns this fall for its 44th season, it will be with one less cast member from the previous season. This past week, Vulture reported that SNL and executive producer Lorne Michaels were parting ways with featured cast member Luke Null. The report was very low on details. There was no explanation on whether Luke Null had been fired or quit or any reason for the end of his SNL career which only lasted one season. Null was brought on board at the start of last year’s season 43 along with Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd, who both had remarkable rookie seasons for brand new Saturday Night Live cast members. Gardner and Redd were highlighted in sketches and digital shorts with Redd getting lead roles and Gardner developing popular characters in both sketches and on Weekend Update, while Luke Null wasn’t quite as fortunate. He languished in the background of sketches and that’s just when he was being given any air time at all. Before being picked to join Saturday Night Live, Null was performing at the iO Theater in Chicago as part of the improv and sketch group, the Newport Hounds. He’s known mainly as a musical comedian, but those talents were never really put to use on the SNL stage. Perhaps more light will be shed on the Luke Null situation as further developments are announced for Saturday Night Live‘s new season, which hadn’t even gotten a premiere date yet before it received its first casualty.

As for tonight’s repeat episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Chance the Rapper, it’s considered one of the best of the past season. Chance the Rapper got raves in online reviews and across social media and he was even compared to Justin Timberlake for his versatility as a host. Our own headline on the Interrobang’s review of this episode announced that, “Chance Nails It.” One of the more impressive parts of this episode is that it got such stellar critiques when the show’s cold open and monologue were basic disasters. The SNL- Cold Open featured cast members Mikey Day and Alex Moffat in the role of their popular comedic versions of Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the President’s sons. There was no Alec Baldwin in this cold open to portray the beleaguered Donald J. Trump Sr. and the jokes seemed to be rehashed or pulled from a file of SNL Trump leftovers. The whole opener seemed to be just a set-up so that cast member Kate McKinnon could once again flip genders to portray another man from the World of Trump. In this case, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. After a dud of a cold open, Chance the Rapper came out for opening remarks which our review referred to as “a cringingly bad monologue.” This was the last episode before the November holiday, so we were treated to, actually more like, subjected to a Thanksgiving song from Chance that the IBang called “forgettable as a song, and unforgettable as a monologue gone wrong.” So if you decide to tune in tonight for Saturday Night Live, you might want to do yourself a favor and give it a good 10 minutes or so into the episode before you start watching.

Two major highlights came out of the sketches and SNL- Digital Shorts from tonight’s Saturday Night Live rerun. First was a sketch with a Thanksgiving theme. It’s Thanksgiving in Gotham City and billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne (cast member Beck Bennett) is hosting a food bank at stately Wayne Manor. Several Gotham citizens from impoverished and more crime-ridden neighborhoods are in attendance and played by cast members Leslie Jones, Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson and Melissa Villaseñor along with host Chance the Rapper. Once they realize their host Bruce Wayne knows Gotham City’s Caped Crusader, Batman, they ask Mr. Wayne to pass along a message to him; to lay off their neighborhoods with his vigilante justice, jaw breaking punches and for some reason, his penchant for leaving criminals hanging by their underwear.

The other moment from this evening’s encore Saturday Night Live that had social media on fire was one of the evening’s SNL – Digital Shorts. On a previous SNL appearance as musical guest, Chance the Rapper performed in a digital short music video called “Jingle Barack“ which was a celebration of President Barack Obama’s last Christmas in the White House. On tonight’s repeat, we get the follow-up song, “Come Back, Barack“. It’s a desperate plea from the music group De-Von-Tré featuring Chance, Kenan Thompson and Chris Redd for the former President to please return to run the country again. The 90’s style break-up song had Obama fans and Hillary Clinton supporters cheering on social media while Trump voters and Conservatives complained about it and called it sour grapes over a lost election.

Other sketches that were included in our favorites from tonight’s SNL repeat episode hosted by Chance the Rapper include a Thanksgiving version of “Family Feud” where host Steve Harvey (Kenan Thompson) is in for a real holiday surprise where it turns out the real feud he’s in is with Mrs. Harvey (Leslie Jones). There’s also a sketch that’s was called the best sports sketch in the history of Saturday Night Live. It features Chance the Host as an NBA sports commentator who finds himself in the very unfamiliar territory of having to call his first hockey game. Then there’s another SNL – Digital Short where Chance plays a member of the classic hip-hop group, the Soul Crush Crew. The group gives modern artist Lil Doo Doo played to perfection by cast member Pete Davidson, a lesson in rap history. The rest of the show contains a couple of clunker sketches towards the end of the episode. So, if you cut off the slow beginning of this SNL and then the sloppy ending, you’re left with a very funny, creamy comedy center of a very strong Saturday Night Live.

In tonight’s edition of Weekend Update, anchormen Colin Jost and Michael Che take no prisoners by diving right into the sexual misconduct allegations against then-Senator Al Franken and the dozen women accusing Jeremy Piven of sexual assault. Plus, Jost and Che comment on the Trump tax reform plan, Senate candidate Roy Moore, a British Scrabble game scandal, a new Harry Potter game app, dog cloning, NFL Commish Roger Goodell and his new contract and the world’s longest mustache record. The Weekend Update news desk was a busy place with 3 guests dropping by including veteran comedian Bruce Chandling (Kyle Mooney) with some bad holiday jokes (“Maize I have a second helping?“) and a depressing Thanksgiving message. There’s also Pete Davidson explaining why he’s not welcomed back to his home of Staten Island for the holiday and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Kate McKinnon) explaining his latest testimony in front of Congress.

In the promos for tonight’s SNL replay, cast members Beck Bennett, Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd help Chance the Rapper dance himself ready to host the show. And in the next set, Chance is joined by musical guest Eminem who reveals why he won’t rap battle Leslie Jones and the trio try to find an alternative name for the host.

Chance the Rapper hosts tonight’s Saturday Night Live repeat with musical guest Eminem at 11:30pm on NBC.

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Ernie Tripper

Ernie Tripper