Lorne Michaels and NBC are apparently unfamiliar with the idea of “tempting fate,” or else they would absolutely not be doing what they’re doing with next week’s post-election episode of Saturday Night Live: As announced last night (via Deadline), next week’s episode will be hosted by none other than Dave Chappelle, who won an Emmy for hosting the first episode after the 2016 election. So this is evidently a tradition now, but hopefully “Chappelle hosting SNL” is the only thing this has in common with his 2016 episode. They could resurrect some sketches or whatever (the 2016 episode had a brilliant “Inside SNL” post-sketch analysis sketch that was funny enough that it should’ve been driven into the ground by now), but we’re talking about… you know, the thing that happened a few days before the episode aired that kicked off three straight years of misery and then one more year that taught us we didn’t even know the meaning of the goddamn word.
Hell, airing an episode at all next week seems like a very bold called-shot. It wasn’t originally on the schedule, but SNL expanded to an unprecedented six-week run of shows without any weeks off so it could air an episode on November 7. If the bad thing happens, who’s going to be in a mood for jokes? Chappelle did a good job last time, but Trump hadn’t taken office yet. There was still a chance things wouldn’t be as bad as we all assumed, but in the years since, things have been even worse than a lot of people assumed. Chappelle’s not going to be able to say “we’ll give you a shot as long as you give people like me a shot” (as he did last time), because Trump has already had his shot and he used it to separate children from the parents at the border and oversee the deaths of 231,000 Americans as if they meant nothing. There’s a chance the bad thing won’t happen, obviously, but if you’re feeling optimistic then we’d like to know where you’ve been for the last four years and whether we can join you there in a few days.
Anyway, SNL’s announcement tweet didn’t mention a musical guest, so maybe Chappelle do double duty for some reason. Also, let’s not talk about some of the other stuff Chappelle has done recently and just focus on the election for now. We can only handle so much.
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Will he also host it for the following several weeks until the many, many lawsuits are resolved and the results are finalized?
Excerpt, Ken Burns’ The SNLVIL War (PBS 2020-2023):
Dearest Elaine,This episode of Saturday Night Live goes on unending, now into its fifth fortnight. Even after the food ran out, we stand. Even after Kenan fell to our ravenous mouths, we stand. Still, Lorne, bullhorn in hand, won’t let us leave the accursed stage! I’ve heard news that some of the more weak-willed members of the cast are, ironically, nearing rebellion themselves.
I hope this letter reaches you before Christmastime. Be well, my love, and know that, if these are to be my last thoughts, they are of you.David Beauregard Chappelle, 65th Ohio Comedy Regiment
Chances are this country will be on open rebellion by then so no. Did you see the video of Biden’s truck in Texas being harassed by trucks with Trump signs?! And Trump tweeted he didn’t see them do anything wrong!? I know we have all been “2020 is the worse” and “Trump wants civil was” in less then serious joking tones but I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that I’m scared of the outcome of this election and what happens in this county. I hope that Biden wins in a landslide and the racists and fascists in this country slither back under their rocks but I feel like they have been far to emboldened over the last four years.
I didn’t see that video, but I saw a similar one in which domestic terrorists weaponized their trucks and cars and used them to force a Biden bus to slow down to 20 mph and tried to run it off the road.Trump’s already started a civil cold war. The Tweet you mention and many, many others make it clear that he thinks there are two Americas, and he’s the president of the one that loves him. Everyone else is an enemy.
I was confused at first when I heard SNL originally wasn’t gonna have an episode the Saturday after the election, but looking back I found they’ve done that several times before(luckily, one of the years they did have an episode right after the election was 2000).
The show has been varying degrees of interested in politics over the years depending on how funny the president was. Probably makes sense that having post election shows would have seemed more important some days than others.
OK, but I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t have thought until recently that the aftermath of this election wasn’t worth covering.
I think it was more a case of them never having done a live show six weeks in a row before. I’m not even sure if they’ve done five; they only did four in a row for the first time sometime in the past decade or so, IIRC. So I imagine they were probably considering doing a sixth show pretty early on, but hadn’t confirmed it yet because they were already coming back with five in a row, which is pretty unusual. As-is, they’re in the weird position of having two weekends where they’d almost always have shows (11/13 and 11/20) as question marks, as seven in a row seems unlikely—and doing six in a row, taking one week off, then doing a one-off before taking off Thanksgiving weekend would also be unusual. If they do three in December as they usually do, they’ll be at 9 episodes out of a presumed 21 by the end of the year, which is about where they’d usually be, so I wonder if they’ll just skip the rest of November as the dust settles on whatever happens (or isn’t resolved) on 11/3.
I’m pretty sure this is the first time they’ve done 5 in a row, let alone 6. However, they did 4 in a row twice in the show’s first season, although they didn’t do 4 in a row again until the end of the 2007-8 writers strike(even so, that season had the fewest episodes in SNL history, with 12). What I’m wondering is why they didn’t plan to take a week off after the first 2-3 weeks like they would normally do so they could do the week after the election without fatigue being an issue.
I bet Lorne felt (correctly) that there would be such an avalanche of pre-election news and stress that it would behoove them to make the show as available as possible to keep up, especially after having a very occasional schedule for the at-home episodes in the spring, and also felt (incorrectly) that their political sketches would be such cultural sensations that people would be wild for more Baldwin ‘n Carrey ‘n Maya!
Yes, thank goodness they didn’t air an episode that week 20 years ago. Can you even imagine??
This article is impossibly cringey to read.
I assume he’ll bring serial sexual harasser that he’s apparently still friends with…
Not to nitpick but ‘serial’ requires a series.
Are we really going to argue now that Louis didn’t sexually harass multiple people, even after he admitted to doing just that?
At least 5 women have come forward with accusations against Louis. That’s a series, hence “serial sexual harrasser” being an accurate description.
Remember the time AV Club tried to convince readers that Dave Chappelle was no longer relevant by omitting him from their list of best Netflix standup specials? How’d that pan out?
Man, don’t HELP them with their forbidden dark ritual to attempt to resurrect 2016.Although, resurrection rituals DO tend to backfire spectacularly on the ones attempting them . . .
I can’t wait for him to say it doesn’t matter that Biden won, nothing will change
Hey, he’ll just take back what he said, like last time.
Not the best look, but he was trying to be hopeful and put forward a hopeful message for everyone who was grappling with that horrible news. This gif definitely needs context. He said a lot more than that one line.
If the bad thing happens, who’s going to be in a mood for jokes?How many people watched last time?
cute that you think the election will be settled by saturday
My only prayer is that Biden wins. My second only prayer is that if he loses they won’t stick Jim Carrey and Kate McKinnon up to do a mournful cold open.
At least use an appropriate Cohen song like The Future instead of that hack job Kate McKinnon coughed up.
humor is most important when things suck, Sam. I think you might just be a dink.
Maybe they shouldn’t. I mean, I’m not generally superstitious but, why go for a repeat?
I AM superstitious, and I think this is a bad fking idea. The second I saw that in the commercial break this past Saturday, I was like, welp, here we go again.
MOOZICAL GUEST Michael Dukakis!
I wonder how long after Trump took office he changed his mind from “I’m gonna give this guy a chance” to “F**k Trump.”
If only SNL could’ve brought A Tribe Called Quest back as well. Their performance on that episode was special and felt searing given the shittiness of that week, and the years to come. I’m still puzzled that their album or ‘We the People’ didn’t become more of an anthem of resistance. Probably spotify is to blame I suppose.https://youtu.be/BDxKVYUHBdA