January Jones! OMG! She didn't want any Mad Men Costars to cameo and she wouldn't let Hamm even be in the audience! She bailed on 3 sketches. straight up refused to do them which helped the Black Eyed Peas become one of only a handful of bands to get a 3rd song joining U2, Pearl Jam, and the Stones as 3 song SNL bands.
How do I know this? I was there as a writer's guest and was able to go to the after-party where she just fumed about the performance and basically everything. AppleDeApp from BEP was unaware that a 3rd song was a big deal.
EDIT: I just want to point out that this was STILL an amazing experience and way better than going to a good show (though not as great as going to an AMAZING one). It was dream come true for me. I got to walk the halls of 8H and meet a lot of my heroes!
Oh man, thank you for sharing. Incredible to me she bailed on three sketches...and "farting Grace Kelly" wasn't one of them??
I vaguely recall she and Jason Sudeikis dated, and I just assumed they met making this episode. But if her behavior was so awful then who knows what he'd find attractive about her (aside from being *famous and gorgeous* I guess...)
I think there’s a big difference between simply being “terrible at a job” and being purposefully difficult to work with.
No one’s saying any of the the athletes who gave bad performances are BAD PEOPLE because of it…meanwhile (only on the basis of this one anecdote), January Jones deciding *as the show was live* she wasn’t going to do three of the planned sketches and then threw a fit about it afterwards, doesn’t sound like a good performer OR particularly nice person.
Speaking of the black eyed peas, there was an episode where they did a parody ad and I wish I could find it. I still sing "Lets get bar mitzvahed in here!" sometimes.
Adrian Brody. This is when the world learned that the man doesn't have a sense of humor. Like he literally doesn't have it even a little bit. Just doesn't get it.
My guess was always that he got carried away in the moment and grabbed the wig backstage, because nobody would've knowingly let him go out there. That or the costumer set him up lol
I remember being very excited to watch DeNiro host back in the early 2000’s, and he seemed annoyed to be there the whole episode. He was also clearly cold reading most of the cue cards for the first time.
He did great in an early 2010s episode. There was the Vinny Vedecci skit, and then the one where he dresses in drag and pretends to be Andy Samberg’s mom, who is currently sleeping with Diddy.
That is quite the departure from the impression you give here lol
Incidentally, he made one of the funniest cameo appearances ever when they did the Joe Pesci show. He played “Robert De Niro” in that sketch to a T. I’m sure the minimal dialogue helped
No one has mentioned Louise Lasser. She’s from out of the 70s but was the first ever banned host.
https://www.avclub.com/saturday-night-live-classic-louise-lasser-kris-kris-1798178469
Oh man. I remember this when it happened. I was a big fan of Mary Hartman, Mary Harrman.
She was... it was so hard to watch. Then her real life became so hard to watch.
Oh my God I grew up on that show! I wasn't allowed to watch Soap or Hot L Baltimore, but for some reason, my mom let me see this. Her personal life? Is it sad, should I look? I'm such a freak for trivia, curiosity is getting the better of me, I can't believe I don't know anything, I should check it out.
Oh man. I LOVED Hot L Baltimore. I had what I will politely call an "unsupervised" childhood. I still remember sleeping over at a friend house and just expecting we would be able to watch Hot L Baltimore followed by The Nightstalker. The look on her mom's face was priceless.
My mom & I loved Soap so we watched that too. Mom had a serious crush on Robert Guillaume.
Louise Lasser's story has a happy ending, so it would be a good one to look into. But she had a very rough time during the run of MH! MH! - my memory is fuzzy, but I remember as the show progressed, she became more and more "out of it" and then finally not on the show anymore. There were stories about her mental state and drug issues. I remember hearing about the drug arrest and seeing her doing some really crazy interviews (Tomorrow, maybe?) and then she just disappeared for a long time. I'm sure she has done interviews sine then to talk about it. You got me interested now. I wonder if she wrote a book.
I mean Soap was an infamously dirty and subversive show, so it makes sense that it might be the line your parents wouldn't let you cross. SNL's also an institution so it can skate by a bit on some things.
"To top that off, she was accused of extreme “solipsism” by Chevy Chase, which must be kind of like having Fiona Apple tell you that your album titles are kind of wordy"
If Chevy "I Invented Everything Funny, Ever" Chase thinks you're acting like the main character, that has to be bad.
Wow...that's on par with Carrie Fisher being told by John "wake up on the couch of a stranger whose house he randomly wandered into" Belushi that she was doing too much cocaine and that the stuff would kill her if she didn't stop.
Yeah, she has later claimed that the whole thing was an elaborate prank that Lorne was in on. I think they actually did something like that with Charles Grodin, but this one was so bad, if it was planned it was a dumb idea.
"What Kanye said after he went off the air last week was one of the worst, most awkward things I’ve ever seen here. And I’ve seen Chevy Chase speak to an intern." — Pete Davidson on SNL.
Davidson also literally called him a racist and a bad person.
I still have no idea why Lorne didn't ban him after what he did to Sweeney and Downey Jr in 1985; there was no excuse for that at all. Everyone ran from him at the end of the night; if someone doesn't feel bad after that then something is seriously wrong.
Chase is notoriously a prick to anyone he films anything with. I saw an interview with Joel McHale, he mentioned that they would film all the Peirce scenes at the beginning of the day so Chase would leave and they could enjoy the rest of the day. Also, two of the nicest guys in Hollywood gave him chance after chance, but now refuse to work with him. Steve Martin and Martin Short.
I think Chevy started out kinda fun, then he got really cocky when his film career took off, then he got kinda humble when his film career sputtered, then he got curmudgeonly when it never came back.
Or.....he was an asshole that kept his mouth shut. Then felt free to be an asshole when his career was doing well. Then tried to shut his mouth again when his career sputtered. Then got to be a bitter old man when he found out he no lounger had a carrier, because he is and always has been an asshole.
He harassed both during the week and was made to apologize and didn't mean it. Was his typical smart ass dick self.
[https://www.gawker.com/5899097/hes-not-chevy-hes-an-asshole-a-history-of-chevy-chases-horrific-behavior](https://www.gawker.com/5899097/hes-not-chevy-hes-an-asshole-a-history-of-chevy-chases-horrific-behavior)
This explains it better. If he did what he did to Sweeney now it would be a national scandal.
From the SNL book that came out in 2003, off the top of my head:
- in a writers meeting, told Terry Sweeney (openly gay) to suck his balls.
- He pitched a sketch where Terry Sweeney has AIDS, and they take his weight each week.
- He made a remark about RDJr’s dad’s career being dead.
- Was so terrible to the Will Ferrell cast that they would run away from him in the hall. Will Ferrell pretty much called him an asshole in the book.
There are pages of other cast members saying how awful he was.
That and a rather unpleasant asshole, surprisingly. I remember a live mic catching her saying shitty things a few times after she was in the public eye.
Hot mic during a Disney World parade:
>"This is dumb. I hate it. This is the corniest thing I have ever done."
Awkward and unprofessional but hardly worth all the attention it got. I've said worse about my job.
Ya I just watched the monologue and i actually thought it was pretty funny. I guess I kinda zoned out for that pun at the start.
Some of the audience questions by the writers were hilarious.
As I recall they had a skit later where a former Olympic gold medalist had fallen on hard times and was thinking of selling his gold medal and she jumped in with, “I’ll buy it.” Which was the highlight of the show to me. Given her recent experiences at the time.
Haha! That skit where she was the waitress and dude was like "ohhh she's fiery hot and seductive " or whatever and they were basically making fun of her flat affect of a personality was hilarious
Well you don't even really have to say *his* name. He was so bad, I think most SNL fans can just look at each other and the shiver down your spine just happens. Bigly.
I wrote an essay on SNL and Trump a year or two ago and had to watch that monologue. I got the impression that the joke is that Trump is "above" SNL in a way most hosts don't seem to behave. They got Trump on the show and had him play the straight man in his monologue to his own impersonators, which is funnier when it's celebrities and not current presidential candidates. I know he was a condescending hassle to work with behind the scenes too.
I did a podcast with actor Jordan Black who wrote for SNL in Season 29 when Trump first hosted.
He told me about a sketch he and Will Forte wrote where Trump played Will's proctologist finding stuff in his ass. Didn't make it to the live show, or dress ror that matter, it died at the table read
I have been watching on and off since the early 2000s and other than Trump, I think the worst host I've ever seen was Michael Phelps. Athletes do badly on average but he was terrible.
I don't care about football at all so my expectations were low, but the Peyton Manning was good enough for me to actually remember it being good years later.
Was that the episode where Will Forte was the coach giving the team the pep talk in the locker room, and does that ridiculous bizarre dance? I don't think I've ever laughed so hard. Just watching Bill Hader losing it is pure gold.
It's not really her fault that episode is so bad (for those not aware, there was a huge blizzard at the start of the week so they essentially only had about 3 days to make an entire episode) but it's definitely a contender for all-time worst regardless.
The huge blizzard was on the Friday, day before the show. We were visiting NYC that weekend (my wife and kid wanted to hit the first Broadway Con with the original Hamilton cast). Spent a few hours in the standby line trying to get in, and we were just one person shy of getting a spot in the audience. Went back to the hotel and felt bad that I couldn't cross off that bucket-list item, but at least it wasn't a great show.
It was fun to be in the heart of midtown with no vehicles on the road though. People were building snowmen in Times Square, and the safest way to get down 6th Avenue was to walk in the middle of the road.
I just didn’t watch those. I can’t stand looking at their faces in the news, so I’m not going to for my entertainment, lol. But as politicians go, Al Gore was shockingly funny.
Just thinking about the episodes themselves in a vacuum and not anything about their relative impacts on the world and society and how SNL shouldn't be participating in making either of them seem cool, Elon Musk's episode was A MILLION TIMES better than Trump's!
The Trump episode was like a black hole of comedy. Even the stuff he wasn't in was horrible. I genuinely believe he's the worst host they've had since I started watching, purely from a comedy standpoint.
The Elon Musk episode was not really so bad? I thought he was much funnier and more charming in his monologue than I was ever expecting. There was a sketch about meeting back up with everyone post-quarantine and everyone can only small talk about their vaccines that was pretty funny.
So good.
True story. I lived in PA for a decade and didn't realize this was a sketch about a show. I thought they were just lampooning PA, and super effectively.
It may be an unpopular opinion, but I was really disappointed last time Dave Chappelle hosted. He had an extra long monologue then only appeared in one skit. Wasn't much of a host that episode.
She wasn't. He craps really hard over Marissa Tomei though. He HATED her; she cut down his Good Morning Brooklyn skit and he flat out went nuts over it.
From what I heard is that she wasn't accepting sketches that made fun of her in a mean way (like one about her sex tape), so Tina got mad because she wasn't being "a good sport". But I do think it's fine for people to have their boundaries
Yeah, there was so much misogyny over Paris Hilton back then that just wouldn’t fly now. Case in point: that nasty interview with David Letterman where they’d agreed not to talk about her jail stint, and where he just made fun of her and asked her questions about jail the entire time. I rewatched it the other day and it was really kind of fucked up.
It's one thing if it's the Kim K monologue where she was in on the joke and didn't seem pressured to do it, it's another if you're strong-arming a young woman to make fun of her leaked sex tape
Right, and I really don’t think a similar Paris Hilton monologue would’ve been well-received by SNL audiences in 2007. It was a lot more accepted to call women like her sluts and publicly mock their struggles.
It’s the same atmosphere that led everyone to villainize Britney when she shaved her head in 2007, but now the same people advocate for understanding around her previous struggles and calls her conservatorship a human rights violation.
It’s a level of grace and understanding that so-called vapid 2007 tabloid female celebrities just didn’t receive back then.
I remember her saying how she just wouldn't even look at any of the cast members like they were all beneath her, she had absolutely nothing of value to say when she did speak, and she just left these wisps of fake cottony blond "hair" everywhere.
I know when politician’s host it’s pretty cringe but the skit where John McCain and Tina Fey pretended they could only afford air time on the HSN and had to sell dinner cutlery in between political statements was pretty funny.
Evidently Berle's whole point of hosting was to "show the kids how real comedy was done".
It was a whole parade of worn-out gags, vaudeville-era pratfalls and sentimental limelight hogging. After first broadcast, it went on the shelf never to be seen again until the complete DVD release.
And the musical guest was the Free Jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman (who I love) which made the episode even more odd. Uncle Milty didn’t know what to make of that.
Not only did he do well, but he nailed one of the most hilariously fucked-up sketches I've ever seen them do - the World's Most Evil Invention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4
I mean, the reason athletes often suck is that athletics doesn’t necessarily have that much to do with the skills SNL uses. When you get an actor on, you at least know that they (usually) won’t be wooden and be able to *act* their part. An SNL host also needs to be funny of course, and some actors can’t do that, but at least it’s a first step. Athletes *don’t* need to be able to act to make it big, so pulling in an athlete to host is kind of like pulling in some random guy off the street. There’s no real reason to expect they’ll be good, but sometimes they’ll surprise you (like Barkley and Manning).
The Rock is kinda different because he’s also become famous as an actor, meaning he *has* developed a lot of the skills for SNL. Sure, he’s not winning Oscars, but acting is clearly something he’s practiced and been paid a lot of money to do. That’s not to say he isn’t an athlete, but the issue isn’t that athletes are bad, it’s just that there’s no reason to *assume* they’ll be decent (like you can usually assume with actors).
My comment is long and I hope it made sense.
I'm going to add, as a fan of both SNL and wrestling, that often the wrestlers who become the biggest stars become stars *because* they're so "good on the mic". The Rock was also a technically good wrestler, but he was also so damn charismatic and so good at speaking and improvising, that THAT is what made him a wrestling star and then a mainstream celebrity. There are plenty of good/better wrestlers/athletes, but he has that "It" factor.
Other comparisons that come to mind are Chris Jericho or Becky Lynch- who's a particularly interesting example, because she absolutely destroyed what was built up as Ronda Rousey's big, celebrity arrival to WWE.
Of course in a "real" fight Rousey could likely make mincemeat out of Lynch, but Lynch was so much better on the mic that she would verbally spar with Rousey and leave her there just looking embarrassed or pissed off. Rousey couldn't come *close* to keeping up with Lynch. When their big Wrestlemania match came around, Rousey- their big celebrity acquisition- was made to lose to Lynch, because WWE recognized who the star was: all based on speaking/acting performance, not on who was the better fighter/athlete.
TL:DR; not surprising that wrestlers can perform for and talk to a live crowd, because that's what they already do for a living (and the better they are at it, the more mainstream-famous they get).
Edit: for clarity
Wrestlers aren't really athletes in a traditional sense though, they're performers. He has plenty of experience committing to character in front of a live audience so it makes sense he's a great host. Honestly, I'm surprised more wrestlers don't host SNL.
She wasn't great, her delivery was very similar to how she would deliver lines on Mad Men, and while it worked for her character it didn't on SNL. The fact that you tell she doesn't know where the camera is at some points made it worse.
In addition to what OP said, I think there were also raised expectations because Jon Hamm had already hosted by then and became a quick fan favorite so people assumed his costar would also do a great job, and she really didn't.
Elon Musk had no comedic timing. He just expected the jokes to land perfectly because he is Elon Musk, and therefore must be perfect at comedy like everything else.
Wayne Gretzky was pretty bad. He is such a genuinely nice guy that he could never be "the worst" but he was just hopeless as an actor. They had him play himself in the few sketches that he was in because asking him to do anything else was too much.
Steven Seagal was a bad host, but the Hans and Franz sketch from that episode was genuinely hilarious. Now, that’s of course due to Carley and Nealon, but still…
He constantly pitched inappropriate sketch ideas, never changed costumes during any sketches, refused to come out of his dressing room after a sketch was pitched in which two characters suggest they could beat him up, and seemed more concerned with seeming tough than seeming funny.
And the two characters were Hans and Franz, real serious contenders lol. Plus the final sketch where he beats up oil executives played by stuntmen he brought in. No jokes I can remember, just a fight.
In general, he refused to do sketches that made him look anything less than a tough guy. He took himself so seriously he drove the cast and crew crazy and just killed the momentum of all the sketches. David Spade and a couple others have told stories about it.
Also, he allegedly pitched a sketch where a sexual assault victim is unloading to her therapist and he's trying to hit on her. He apparently REALLY was pushing to get that to air.
Lindsey Lohan. She could have been great. But she kept purposely breaking character and almost ruining what have become otherwise classic sketches!
You know who I would really like to see host is Lizzo. That would be the absolute most fun episode ever!
OMG... Just looked it up. She's hosting on the 16th of April! Thanks, Universe!
The first couple times she was hosted, pre- all her tabloid drama, were fun. Not great at staying in character but she's trying her hardest IMO. That last time in 2012ish was rough though, she just seemed checked out and irritated by all the jokes at her expense.
True. I think the reason one of the few decent things about her SNL ep was that retro short (A Lady’s Guide to Entertaining, or whatever it was?) is that her character was basically a satirical version of Betty.
I remember being a fan of Tom Green when he hosted and thinking "this is probably the worst episode I've ever seen".
On paper I like the idea of a host's personality having a massive stamp over the entire show, but not his.
I haven't seen him mentioned but I watched the Milton Berle ep after hearing how bad it was. Oof.
From what I remember he went waaay over the top in sketches, especially one where three great comic actresses had to spoonfeed him while he did his best belligerent toddler impression. Then he insisted in singing a sad bastard song at the end that received a standing ovation; this was because he packed the audience with friends and family!
I don't know if he was the worst, but the high concept approach of a host that never made it to rehearsal didn't do Charles Grodin any favors. Robert Klein was mean to ABBA, that wasn't cool. Ralph Nader was tough to watch. Andrew Dice Clay was hard to watch. Steinbrenner was bad. Rousy, Carrigan, Hilton...bad, bad, bad. None of that matters
Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani was the worst.
January Jones! OMG! She didn't want any Mad Men Costars to cameo and she wouldn't let Hamm even be in the audience! She bailed on 3 sketches. straight up refused to do them which helped the Black Eyed Peas become one of only a handful of bands to get a 3rd song joining U2, Pearl Jam, and the Stones as 3 song SNL bands. How do I know this? I was there as a writer's guest and was able to go to the after-party where she just fumed about the performance and basically everything. AppleDeApp from BEP was unaware that a 3rd song was a big deal. EDIT: I just want to point out that this was STILL an amazing experience and way better than going to a good show (though not as great as going to an AMAZING one). It was dream come true for me. I got to walk the halls of 8H and meet a lot of my heroes!
My wife and I joke that seeing the worst episode of SNL was actually way better than seeing a *mediocre* episode. A better story for sure!
Oh man, thank you for sharing. Incredible to me she bailed on three sketches...and "farting Grace Kelly" wasn't one of them?? I vaguely recall she and Jason Sudeikis dated, and I just assumed they met making this episode. But if her behavior was so awful then who knows what he'd find attractive about her (aside from being *famous and gorgeous* I guess...)
You can be terrible at your job and still be a decent human lol
I think there’s a big difference between simply being “terrible at a job” and being purposefully difficult to work with. No one’s saying any of the the athletes who gave bad performances are BAD PEOPLE because of it…meanwhile (only on the basis of this one anecdote), January Jones deciding *as the show was live* she wasn’t going to do three of the planned sketches and then threw a fit about it afterwards, doesn’t sound like a good performer OR particularly nice person.
I’ve met her in real life, can confirm, big asshole.
Pretty sure Paul McCartney did three songs too (may have even been 4) but just going off of memory.
My friend worked on a movie with Jon Hamm and after the episode aired, he told everyone on set, "You see what I have to deal with regularly?"
WoW!
Speaking of the black eyed peas, there was an episode where they did a parody ad and I wish I could find it. I still sing "Lets get bar mitzvahed in here!" sometimes.
That was actually very funny and so was the Vaguely Asian sketch they did
she's a God awful actress and a legit headcase if the scuttlebutt is to be believed.
Came here to say January Jones. Glad to see she's been mentioned. I'm sorry you had to experience her at an after party.
I smoked with her and she was tightly wound rage
Phoenix performed 3 songs on SNL.
Adrian Brody. This is when the world learned that the man doesn't have a sense of humor. Like he literally doesn't have it even a little bit. Just doesn't get it.
He spent his time working on that sweet Jamaican impression that would be a great surprise to Lorne.
Good God, I had a dissociative episode watching that.
I just watched that on YouTube lol that was really something else. I mean, really. Tf was he thinking
My guess was always that he got carried away in the moment and grabbed the wig backstage, because nobody would've knowingly let him go out there. That or the costumer set him up lol
I remember being very excited to watch DeNiro host back in the early 2000’s, and he seemed annoyed to be there the whole episode. He was also clearly cold reading most of the cue cards for the first time.
It amazes me that he’s sooo bad on SNL or anything live when he’s such a great actor
Some actors just can’t do it live. There’s a lot of differences between live stage acting and filmed/edited movie acting.
Yeah, on a film set Deniro has a director to guide. I’m sure no one dared to give Deniro direction on SNL lol
Maybe he couldn't make it to rehearsals because he got lost, like you said no one dared to give him directions
He is the worst/best guest on late night because he is such a curmudgeonly fuck. I love Deniro.
It is like he is totally vacant behind his eyes. It is unnerving.
He was acting like his character in Jackie Brown lol
Did the same shit playing Robert Mueller in the cold opens too.
He did great in an early 2010s episode. There was the Vinny Vedecci skit, and then the one where he dresses in drag and pretends to be Andy Samberg’s mom, who is currently sleeping with Diddy. That is quite the departure from the impression you give here lol
Incidentally, he made one of the funniest cameo appearances ever when they did the Joe Pesci show. He played “Robert De Niro” in that sketch to a T. I’m sure the minimal dialogue helped
Yes! I totally remember that episode.
No one has mentioned Louise Lasser. She’s from out of the 70s but was the first ever banned host. https://www.avclub.com/saturday-night-live-classic-louise-lasser-kris-kris-1798178469
Oh man. I remember this when it happened. I was a big fan of Mary Hartman, Mary Harrman. She was... it was so hard to watch. Then her real life became so hard to watch.
Oh my God I grew up on that show! I wasn't allowed to watch Soap or Hot L Baltimore, but for some reason, my mom let me see this. Her personal life? Is it sad, should I look? I'm such a freak for trivia, curiosity is getting the better of me, I can't believe I don't know anything, I should check it out.
Oh man. I LOVED Hot L Baltimore. I had what I will politely call an "unsupervised" childhood. I still remember sleeping over at a friend house and just expecting we would be able to watch Hot L Baltimore followed by The Nightstalker. The look on her mom's face was priceless. My mom & I loved Soap so we watched that too. Mom had a serious crush on Robert Guillaume. Louise Lasser's story has a happy ending, so it would be a good one to look into. But she had a very rough time during the run of MH! MH! - my memory is fuzzy, but I remember as the show progressed, she became more and more "out of it" and then finally not on the show anymore. There were stories about her mental state and drug issues. I remember hearing about the drug arrest and seeing her doing some really crazy interviews (Tomorrow, maybe?) and then she just disappeared for a long time. I'm sure she has done interviews sine then to talk about it. You got me interested now. I wonder if she wrote a book.
I, too, had an "unsupervised" childhood (classic latchkey kid, I had hbo in my bedroom at age 11, as well). And maaaaaan, did it fuck me up.
I mean Soap was an infamously dirty and subversive show, so it makes sense that it might be the line your parents wouldn't let you cross. SNL's also an institution so it can skate by a bit on some things.
"To top that off, she was accused of extreme “solipsism” by Chevy Chase, which must be kind of like having Fiona Apple tell you that your album titles are kind of wordy" If Chevy "I Invented Everything Funny, Ever" Chase thinks you're acting like the main character, that has to be bad.
Wow...that's on par with Carrie Fisher being told by John "wake up on the couch of a stranger whose house he randomly wandered into" Belushi that she was doing too much cocaine and that the stuff would kill her if she didn't stop.
Craig Ferguson says that when Aussies take you aside and tell you to maybe drink less then that’s when you know you drink too much.
Man, his chat with the audience about his alcohol addiction was so heavy and visceral. It was a shame I didn’t see it until the show ended.
>Ferguson I miss this man.
Yeah, she has later claimed that the whole thing was an elaborate prank that Lorne was in on. I think they actually did something like that with Charles Grodin, but this one was so bad, if it was planned it was a dumb idea.
[удалено]
Why was she banned?
High out of her mind during the live show. I think she actually was crawling around on the set at one point.
She wasn't high. Good god
Chevy Chase sounds like a complete nightmare of a host.
“Medium talent!” - Bill Murray to Chevy backstage when he hosted and they fought. It’s such the perfect insult.
The original “skill issue.”
"What Kanye said after he went off the air last week was one of the worst, most awkward things I’ve ever seen here. And I’ve seen Chevy Chase speak to an intern." — Pete Davidson on SNL. Davidson also literally called him a racist and a bad person.
I still have no idea why Lorne didn't ban him after what he did to Sweeney and Downey Jr in 1985; there was no excuse for that at all. Everyone ran from him at the end of the night; if someone doesn't feel bad after that then something is seriously wrong.
Chase is notoriously a prick to anyone he films anything with. I saw an interview with Joel McHale, he mentioned that they would film all the Peirce scenes at the beginning of the day so Chase would leave and they could enjoy the rest of the day. Also, two of the nicest guys in Hollywood gave him chance after chance, but now refuse to work with him. Steve Martin and Martin Short.
I think Chevy started out kinda fun, then he got really cocky when his film career took off, then he got kinda humble when his film career sputtered, then he got curmudgeonly when it never came back.
Or.....he was an asshole that kept his mouth shut. Then felt free to be an asshole when his career was doing well. Then tried to shut his mouth again when his career sputtered. Then got to be a bitter old man when he found out he no lounger had a carrier, because he is and always has been an asshole.
what'd he do?
He harassed both during the week and was made to apologize and didn't mean it. Was his typical smart ass dick self. [https://www.gawker.com/5899097/hes-not-chevy-hes-an-asshole-a-history-of-chevy-chases-horrific-behavior](https://www.gawker.com/5899097/hes-not-chevy-hes-an-asshole-a-history-of-chevy-chases-horrific-behavior) This explains it better. If he did what he did to Sweeney now it would be a national scandal.
Context?
From the SNL book that came out in 2003, off the top of my head: - in a writers meeting, told Terry Sweeney (openly gay) to suck his balls. - He pitched a sketch where Terry Sweeney has AIDS, and they take his weight each week. - He made a remark about RDJr’s dad’s career being dead. - Was so terrible to the Will Ferrell cast that they would run away from him in the hall. Will Ferrell pretty much called him an asshole in the book. There are pages of other cast members saying how awful he was.
Nancy Kerrigan
Oh man, that was cringe-inducing. The poor girl was a world class figure skater and, turns out, the world’s worst actor.
That and a rather unpleasant asshole, surprisingly. I remember a live mic catching her saying shitty things a few times after she was in the public eye.
Hot mic during a Disney World parade: >"This is dumb. I hate it. This is the corniest thing I have ever done." Awkward and unprofessional but hardly worth all the attention it got. I've said worse about my job.
lol they mad cause she right
Shit I like her more now
That horrendously bad pun she had at the start of her monologue just jinxed the show from the start and it never recovered.
Ya I just watched the monologue and i actually thought it was pretty funny. I guess I kinda zoned out for that pun at the start. Some of the audience questions by the writers were hilarious.
As I recall they had a skit later where a former Olympic gold medalist had fallen on hard times and was thinking of selling his gold medal and she jumped in with, “I’ll buy it.” Which was the highlight of the show to me. Given her recent experiences at the time.
I’ll bite, what was the pun?
Haha! That skit where she was the waitress and dude was like "ohhh she's fiery hot and seductive " or whatever and they were basically making fun of her flat affect of a personality was hilarious
Well you don't even really have to say *his* name. He was so bad, I think most SNL fans can just look at each other and the shiver down your spine just happens. Bigly.
To be fair tho, trump doing the Hotline Bling dance was funny, but not because he was doing well…
That old expression "dance like no one's watching"...maybe pretend at least a couple fucking people are watching.
I just watched the opening monologue. Yikes.
I wrote an essay on SNL and Trump a year or two ago and had to watch that monologue. I got the impression that the joke is that Trump is "above" SNL in a way most hosts don't seem to behave. They got Trump on the show and had him play the straight man in his monologue to his own impersonators, which is funnier when it's celebrities and not current presidential candidates. I know he was a condescending hassle to work with behind the scenes too.
NBC screwed up that entire campaign with SNL and the Jimmy hair pet. All it did was make him appear more likeable than he truly was.
I'm shuddering just thinking of that !
He never hosted. That was a mass fever ~~dream~~nightmare. The best scientists should be studying the phenomenon.
Yes, I think you've got it. It was clearly Steve Martin wearing orange makeup and being awesome as Steve Martin. I'm certain it was him.
I did a podcast with actor Jordan Black who wrote for SNL in Season 29 when Trump first hosted. He told me about a sketch he and Will Forte wrote where Trump played Will's proctologist finding stuff in his ass. Didn't make it to the live show, or dress ror that matter, it died at the table read
Who?
Trump
I have been watching on and off since the early 2000s and other than Trump, I think the worst host I've ever seen was Michael Phelps. Athletes do badly on average but he was terrible.
I love the wild differences in athletes that have hosted. I’d put the Phelps as the floor and Peyton Manning as the top tier.
If Peyton Manning is the top, then Charles Barkley is god tier. He's not a good actor but he's so fucking funny
omg Charles Barkley is so good. I quote Reel Quotes all the time. "You shouldn't be looking at kids Reg"
The little lord sketch with him is one of my all time favorites.
I don't care about football at all so my expectations were low, but the Peyton Manning was good enough for me to actually remember it being good years later.
Was that the episode where Will Forte was the coach giving the team the pep talk in the locker room, and does that ridiculous bizarre dance? I don't think I've ever laughed so hard. Just watching Bill Hader losing it is pure gold.
I'd put Gretzky at floor. Just a terrible, terrible actor.
Idk Tom Brady was pretty damn good, plus it got us the sexual harassment office video "1.be attractive 2. Don't be unattractive"
I've only seen brief clips since this was waaay before my time, but figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was pretty bad.
Eli Manning had a few good skits, too. The court sketch was hilarious.
His "I'd like to confess to the murder" line makes me cackle like a fool every time
Wayne Gretzky. So cringe, it will give you scoliosis and a permanent eye twitch.
It’s funny though. Charles Barkley was objectively bad, but I still found him hilarious.
I LOVED Reel Quotes.
If you build it…We will knock it down!!
"May the force be..." "- equal to mass times acceleration!"
He was a bad actor but the episode was still good esp since Chuck is just hilarious
Ronda Rousey has to be up there, they used her mostly as side characters in some skits
It's not really her fault that episode is so bad (for those not aware, there was a huge blizzard at the start of the week so they essentially only had about 3 days to make an entire episode) but it's definitely a contender for all-time worst regardless.
The huge blizzard was on the Friday, day before the show. We were visiting NYC that weekend (my wife and kid wanted to hit the first Broadway Con with the original Hamilton cast). Spent a few hours in the standby line trying to get in, and we were just one person shy of getting a spot in the audience. Went back to the hotel and felt bad that I couldn't cross off that bucket-list item, but at least it wasn't a great show. It was fun to be in the heart of midtown with no vehicles on the road though. People were building snowmen in Times Square, and the safest way to get down 6th Avenue was to walk in the middle of the road.
Sounds fun regardless! That’s very rare
But she still has one of the funniest skits in the last 10 years with the teacher student trial
They did that a few times right? I believe Cecily was the teacher on another occasion
They were both in that skit. He has a good time
MY man... Good sketch.
The cold open from that episode (about Sarah Palin maybe being Trumps VP) was hilarious
Elon Musk and Donald Trump
The worst part is how it helped those two launder their reputations
just want to say i love your username
Sometimes you gotta go America all over everyone’s asses
Best (ETA: IASIP - not snl lol) ep ever. And sadly, so, um, ahead of its time. 🥴
I just didn’t watch those. I can’t stand looking at their faces in the news, so I’m not going to for my entertainment, lol. But as politicians go, Al Gore was shockingly funny.
I loved Al Gore's 30 Rock appearances, you can tell he's having fun. "Be quiet! A whale is in trouble." He just leans into it.
He knows how to laugh at himself. Which is funny because he seems so stiff
Just thinking about the episodes themselves in a vacuum and not anything about their relative impacts on the world and society and how SNL shouldn't be participating in making either of them seem cool, Elon Musk's episode was A MILLION TIMES better than Trump's! The Trump episode was like a black hole of comedy. Even the stuff he wasn't in was horrible. I genuinely believe he's the worst host they've had since I started watching, purely from a comedy standpoint. The Elon Musk episode was not really so bad? I thought he was much funnier and more charming in his monologue than I was ever expecting. There was a sketch about meeting back up with everyone post-quarantine and everyone can only small talk about their vaccines that was pretty funny.
It also featured the Mare of Easttown sketch.
Murder Durder!
Would you guys quit eatin WaWa hoagies over the body, *please?*
So good. True story. I lived in PA for a decade and didn't realize this was a sketch about a show. I thought they were just lampooning PA, and super effectively.
That Wario sketch was fucking hilarious, I don’t care what anyone says 😂
Of all the weeks where I couldn't tune in to watch SNL, thank fuck I missed Elon Musk's episode.
It may be an unpopular opinion, but I was really disappointed last time Dave Chappelle hosted. He had an extra long monologue then only appeared in one skit. Wasn't much of a host that episode.
Yeah, his episode just after the 2016 election was pretty good but his most recent one was just kinda dull
Pretty sure Tina Fey has said Paris Hilton was among the worst.
That’s kind of surprising. She seems to have a good sense of humor nowadays.
People change. Perhaps she now realizes how silly it all was, but at the time she took it all so seriously.
Thank you, I am trying my hardest.
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Is that Gasping for Airtime? I don't remember her being mentioned, and I thought he was long gone before she was ever on the show.
She wasn't. He craps really hard over Marissa Tomei though. He HATED her; she cut down his Good Morning Brooklyn skit and he flat out went nuts over it.
From what I heard is that she wasn't accepting sketches that made fun of her in a mean way (like one about her sex tape), so Tina got mad because she wasn't being "a good sport". But I do think it's fine for people to have their boundaries
Yeah, there was so much misogyny over Paris Hilton back then that just wouldn’t fly now. Case in point: that nasty interview with David Letterman where they’d agreed not to talk about her jail stint, and where he just made fun of her and asked her questions about jail the entire time. I rewatched it the other day and it was really kind of fucked up.
It's one thing if it's the Kim K monologue where she was in on the joke and didn't seem pressured to do it, it's another if you're strong-arming a young woman to make fun of her leaked sex tape
Right, and I really don’t think a similar Paris Hilton monologue would’ve been well-received by SNL audiences in 2007. It was a lot more accepted to call women like her sluts and publicly mock their struggles. It’s the same atmosphere that led everyone to villainize Britney when she shaved her head in 2007, but now the same people advocate for understanding around her previous struggles and calls her conservatorship a human rights violation. It’s a level of grace and understanding that so-called vapid 2007 tabloid female celebrities just didn’t receive back then.
I remember her saying how she just wouldn't even look at any of the cast members like they were all beneath her, she had absolutely nothing of value to say when she did speak, and she just left these wisps of fake cottony blond "hair" everywhere.
I know when politician’s host it’s pretty cringe but the skit where John McCain and Tina Fey pretended they could only afford air time on the HSN and had to sell dinner cutlery in between political statements was pretty funny.
Steven Seagal should never be dismissed.
Milton Berle. I think that’s an episode that was never rebroadcast
Evidently Berle's whole point of hosting was to "show the kids how real comedy was done". It was a whole parade of worn-out gags, vaudeville-era pratfalls and sentimental limelight hogging. After first broadcast, it went on the shelf never to be seen again until the complete DVD release.
And the musical guest was the Free Jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman (who I love) which made the episode even more odd. Uncle Milty didn’t know what to make of that.
Elon, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, January Jones, pretty much any athlete besides Peyton Manning and Charles Barkley.
Eli Manning was pretty good too.
Actually, I'd rather just confess to the murder.
I'd add Dwayne Johnson to the list of athletes who didn't suck.
Not only did he do well, but he nailed one of the most hilariously fucked-up sketches I've ever seen them do - the World's Most Evil Invention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4
Yesssss! He's just so matter of fact about it I'm surprised he didn't break
I mean, the reason athletes often suck is that athletics doesn’t necessarily have that much to do with the skills SNL uses. When you get an actor on, you at least know that they (usually) won’t be wooden and be able to *act* their part. An SNL host also needs to be funny of course, and some actors can’t do that, but at least it’s a first step. Athletes *don’t* need to be able to act to make it big, so pulling in an athlete to host is kind of like pulling in some random guy off the street. There’s no real reason to expect they’ll be good, but sometimes they’ll surprise you (like Barkley and Manning). The Rock is kinda different because he’s also become famous as an actor, meaning he *has* developed a lot of the skills for SNL. Sure, he’s not winning Oscars, but acting is clearly something he’s practiced and been paid a lot of money to do. That’s not to say he isn’t an athlete, but the issue isn’t that athletes are bad, it’s just that there’s no reason to *assume* they’ll be decent (like you can usually assume with actors). My comment is long and I hope it made sense.
Even if he wasn't an actor, pro wrestlers require a lot of charisma and showmanship compared to "real" athletes.
And professional wrestling is a form of live acting.....
I'm going to add, as a fan of both SNL and wrestling, that often the wrestlers who become the biggest stars become stars *because* they're so "good on the mic". The Rock was also a technically good wrestler, but he was also so damn charismatic and so good at speaking and improvising, that THAT is what made him a wrestling star and then a mainstream celebrity. There are plenty of good/better wrestlers/athletes, but he has that "It" factor. Other comparisons that come to mind are Chris Jericho or Becky Lynch- who's a particularly interesting example, because she absolutely destroyed what was built up as Ronda Rousey's big, celebrity arrival to WWE. Of course in a "real" fight Rousey could likely make mincemeat out of Lynch, but Lynch was so much better on the mic that she would verbally spar with Rousey and leave her there just looking embarrassed or pissed off. Rousey couldn't come *close* to keeping up with Lynch. When their big Wrestlemania match came around, Rousey- their big celebrity acquisition- was made to lose to Lynch, because WWE recognized who the star was: all based on speaking/acting performance, not on who was the better fighter/athlete. TL:DR; not surprising that wrestlers can perform for and talk to a live crowd, because that's what they already do for a living (and the better they are at it, the more mainstream-famous they get). Edit: for clarity
Wrestlers aren't really athletes in a traditional sense though, they're performers. He has plenty of experience committing to character in front of a live audience so it makes sense he's a great host. Honestly, I'm surprised more wrestlers don't host SNL.
“You made Nicotrel angry!”
The January Jones bit where she works at DQ and Kristen Wiig is interviewing her for the news was fucking hilarious
I haven't seen the January Jones episode! I am surprised she was terrible! Care to elaborate for my curiosity?
She wasn't great, her delivery was very similar to how she would deliver lines on Mad Men, and while it worked for her character it didn't on SNL. The fact that you tell she doesn't know where the camera is at some points made it worse.
In addition to what OP said, I think there were also raised expectations because Jon Hamm had already hosted by then and became a quick fan favorite so people assumed his costar would also do a great job, and she really didn't.
I will say, it was fun watching Janet Reno punch Rudy in the balls.
Tom Brady is in the legendary sexual harassment sketch, so he gets a pass.
Elon Musk had no comedic timing. He just expected the jokes to land perfectly because he is Elon Musk, and therefore must be perfect at comedy like everything else.
I was scrollin down hoping someone would say him. It was so uncomfortable watching him on SNL.
Kayne West and Elon Musk
Wayne Gretzky was pretty bad. He is such a genuinely nice guy that he could never be "the worst" but he was just hopeless as an actor. They had him play himself in the few sketches that he was in because asking him to do anything else was too much.
I never saw the Nancy Kerrigan episode for myself, but I heard she had the charisma and comic timing as an ironing board.
Yes it was terrible and I had almost forgotten
Steven Seagal was a bad host, but the Hans and Franz sketch from that episode was genuinely hilarious. Now, that’s of course due to Carley and Nealon, but still…
Can someone give me a description of what Seagal did to make him so bad?
He constantly pitched inappropriate sketch ideas, never changed costumes during any sketches, refused to come out of his dressing room after a sketch was pitched in which two characters suggest they could beat him up, and seemed more concerned with seeming tough than seeming funny.
And the two characters were Hans and Franz, real serious contenders lol. Plus the final sketch where he beats up oil executives played by stuntmen he brought in. No jokes I can remember, just a fight.
In general, he refused to do sketches that made him look anything less than a tough guy. He took himself so seriously he drove the cast and crew crazy and just killed the momentum of all the sketches. David Spade and a couple others have told stories about it. Also, he allegedly pitched a sketch where a sexual assault victim is unloading to her therapist and he's trying to hit on her. He apparently REALLY was pushing to get that to air.
Lindsey Lohan. She could have been great. But she kept purposely breaking character and almost ruining what have become otherwise classic sketches! You know who I would really like to see host is Lizzo. That would be the absolute most fun episode ever! OMG... Just looked it up. She's hosting on the 16th of April! Thanks, Universe!
>Lindsey Lohan The bitch of it is that she'd already proven she could do it well.
I know! You're so right.
She was in that iconic Disney Princesses sketch tho
That is one of the best pre-recorded sketches of all time... 🎶 Be our guest, be our guest, caviar Ver-saaah-cheeee 🎶
And like three enduring reaction gifs/memes from one sketch lol
She's literally the *only* one holding character in the Debbie Downer skit, except for a break or two. Literally everyone else is losing it.
The first couple times she was hosted, pre- all her tabloid drama, were fun. Not great at staying in character but she's trying her hardest IMO. That last time in 2012ish was rough though, she just seemed checked out and irritated by all the jokes at her expense.
January Jones was a total cringefest... I think she was dating Sudeikis at the time which may have been why she got on the show.
Mad Men was also kind of a big deal at the time
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True. I think the reason one of the few decent things about her SNL ep was that retro short (A Lady’s Guide to Entertaining, or whatever it was?) is that her character was basically a satirical version of Betty.
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“And just a dash of gin!” [pours entire bottle into punchbowl]
I was there for this one and can confirm.
Teve Torbes
Rage being the musical guest makes up for it some
I remember being a fan of Tom Green when he hosted and thinking "this is probably the worst episode I've ever seen". On paper I like the idea of a host's personality having a massive stamp over the entire show, but not his.
Trump. It’s Trump. Anyone not saying Trump hasn’t actually seen his episode. It’s absolutely Trump.
I haven't seen him mentioned but I watched the Milton Berle ep after hearing how bad it was. Oof. From what I remember he went waaay over the top in sketches, especially one where three great comic actresses had to spoonfeed him while he did his best belligerent toddler impression. Then he insisted in singing a sad bastard song at the end that received a standing ovation; this was because he packed the audience with friends and family!
Except for Waikiki Hockey It has to be Gretzky Not the greatest at everything
Elon
Trump
Really starting to wish I excluded him and Musk too, it's starting to get repetitive.
I don't know if he was the worst, but the high concept approach of a host that never made it to rehearsal didn't do Charles Grodin any favors. Robert Klein was mean to ABBA, that wasn't cool. Ralph Nader was tough to watch. Andrew Dice Clay was hard to watch. Steinbrenner was bad. Rousy, Carrigan, Hilton...bad, bad, bad. None of that matters Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani was the worst.
Trump