5 One-Time ‘SNL’ Hosts Who Need to Be Asked Back Immediately
Tired: The Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club, a group of show veterans that has grown so bloated that its members barely bother to steam-clean their silk robes anymore.
Wired: The Saturday Night Live One-Timers Club, a group of one-off hosts that run the gamut from “What was Lorne thinking?” to “Why the heck weren’t they invited back immediately?”
Many of the best one-time hosts (Richard Pryor, Betty White, Carrie Fisher) were one-time hosts for a reason — they’re getting laughs at the big 30 Rock in the sky. But for other one-hit wonders, there’s no excuse not to issue return tickets.
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Here are five single-shot hosts that we’d love to see back on SNL for Season 50…
Nate Bargatze
Bargatze was Season 49’s Rookie of the Year, an unexpected killer since there was nothing in his straight-faced stand-up to suggest he could pull off sketch characters. Turns out that Bargatze’s understated, 21st-century-Newhart deadpan worked great in creating instant classics like “Washington’s Dream.” Lorne Michaels is producing Bargatze’s upcoming holiday special, a hint that we’ll see the comic back in Studio 8H sometime this year.
Donald Glover
Getting cast on SNL “would have killed me,” Glover told GQ. But returning to host shouldn’t inflict too much pain. His one shot in 2018 reminded Entertainment Weekly that “Donald Glover can truly do it all,” a fact he proved by hosting the show and serving as his own musical guest. Glover wouldn’t have to do double-duty again (unless he wanted to), but here’s hoping a return would mean more music video parodies like “Friendos.”
John C. Reilly
How is it that the star of Talladega Nights, Step Brothers and Walk Hard has only hosted the show a single time? The Adult Swim superstar proved himself sympatico with the oddball comic rhythms of Will Forte, and it’s a damn shame Reilly hasn’t returned to the show since 2013.
Quinta Brunson
Come on, SNL, it’s not like there are tons of other recent sitcom hits to pull prospective hosts from. Brunson is a queen of old-school comedy, a fact she proved when she hosted back in Season 48 and delivered this physical tour de force of a sketch. She’s also a long-time fan of the show. “I walked past a picture just now of Tina Fey on the wall,” Brunson told NBC Insider. “She was one of the reasons I started doing comedy; you find little moments like that to think, ‘Wow, this is proof being here.’”
Sounds like it’s time to go back.
Pedro Pascal
After Pascal starred in one of the funniest episodes of the decade in Season 48, it was a surprise that he didn’t return last year. Well, at least he didn’t come back to host — Pascal popped up in the Bad Bunny episode to reprise his breakout role as Marcello Hernandez’s overprotective mother.
He also helped Ego Nwodim break out as Lisa from Temecula, goosing laughs with his Ryan Gosling-esque inability to keep a straight face. “I could not have had a better time,” Pascal told Esquire about his SNL adventure.
Something tells me we’ll be seeing him again this season.