Jenna Ortega (and a football man) to host March SNLs
The Wednesday star and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce will both host the sketch series next month
Aux News Ortega
Saturday Night Live is set to get a little dose of Wednesday this March—and also a very successful football guy will be there—as the NBC sketch series announced its next slate of guest hosts on social media tonight. Adding to the already announced Woody Harrelson—who’ll take on monologue duties on February 25, with Jack White as his musical guest—the series announced that recent Super Bowl victory man Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs will be tackling the job on March 4, while March 11 has been reserved for Wednesday star Jenna Ortega.
Both are first-time hosts; Kelce enters into a very long, very weird tradition of sports stars deciding to try their hand at performing live sketch comedy in front of millions of people with basically no experience, joining the ranks of such sports-star-turned-chuckle-maker luminaries as O.J. Simpson, Peyton Manning, and NASCAR guy Jeff Gordon. (Fun fact: Of all the many sports people to be invited to host Saturday Night Live over the decades, only two have ever made a return engagement: Dwayne Johnson, who skirts the line between actor and superstar anyway—and, weirdly, Charles Barkley, who’s done the gig a massive four times.)
Ortega, meanwhile, is coming off of being generally regarded as the best part of Netflix’s Wednesday, where she stars as an updated version of Charles Addams’ Gothic creation. Having come up young in the Disney mines, Ortega is an old hand at TV comedy; it’ll be interesting to see whether her skill at handling Tim Burton one-liners translates to the always temperamental rhythms of SNL.
Meanwhile, the musical guests for the two shows will be Kelsea Ballerini, who’ll be accompanying Kelce on the 4th, and The 1975, who’ll be playing during Ortega’s episode on the 11th.
45 Comments
I guess Mahomes said no.
Should have got Andy Reid
Should have got Andy laid.
His brother and wife would be livid
He was about to, but Travis jumped in front of him and started screaming “I’ll do it!”
Can’t wait to hear everybody talking about the inevitable dancing scene sketch for an entire week after the show.In fact, I can probably pitch nearly half of the show ahead of time:Dancing sketch.
Wednesday Family Reunion
Please Don’t Destroy Discover Goths
Bowen Yang as Wednesday’s therapist.
I never got what was so great about the dance she came up with. The little kid on the original show (who just died, I think) seemed a lot more impressive. Who couldn’t come up with “flail your arms around in an off-putting way?”
It’s a TikTok thing.
That TikTok thing totally screwed over The Cramps.
I wouldn’t understand.
You can’t say that isn’t original.
It’s an easy dance to learn, making it easier for it to spread. Sort of like all those dances that rappers did in their videos 20 years ago…. stanky leg, crank that superman, etc.
I thought this was in reference to Travis Kelce at first, as his dancing is one of the few things I know about him. Now if they take your pitches and give them to Kelce…
They just screwed up. Kelce made a complete ass out of himself with all his insufferable comments after the SB about no one respecting the Chiefs. Give the nation a break…
Seriously, who exactly was disrespecting them? I mean their star QB got hobbled so saying “hey it might not be so easy for the Chiefs now” is far from disrespectful.
the series announced that recent Super Bowl victory man Travis Kelce of the Kansas City ChiefsDon’t do that. Don’t be the person at the Super Bowl party who loudly proclaims that they’re too cool to know who’s playing, they only want to watch the commercials.
Surprised Gronk never did it. and Barkley did 4 times he must have liked it.
I’m equally surprised that Peyton only hosted it once. He was legitimately pretty good, and he’s actually a pretty naturally funny dude. His pre-recorded skit where he’s playing football with kids is one of the best things they’ve done with an athlete on the show, if not the best. (The Globetrotters bit with Michael Jordan was pretty great too.)
I dunno, having Charles Barkley in drag as a woman that one of the Gap Girls made out with was pretty damn good. Also him on Daily Affirmation with Mugsy Bogues..
And Donkey Basketball. Barkley, as terrible as he was at reading the cards, was an upper echelon host.
So it begins with show biz Kelce
I say this as a Chiefs fan: “No thank you”.To be fair, I’ve really only heard him spouting off after winning a big game; I’ve heard good things about the podcast he does with his brother. Regardless, virtually any actor/comedian/musician would likely have better stage presence than most any athlete.
The odds are that they will be better yes. But we’ve had some really disapointing actors and musicians too. Comedians are the best bet.
He was on Moonbase 8 briefly a couple of years ago, so he has at least a little bit of acting experience. SNL’s a different beast, of course.
Or was that his brother? Might have been his brother.
It was him but it was pretty much a throwaway gag
Moonbase 8 was JERKS! Why do we even HAVE a stupid Moonbase 8?!
No one remembers ‘Catching Kelce?’
They’re not doing him a whole lot of favors with the musical guest either. Seems like they often pair a wider-known musical guest to carry an athlete’s show along (Lebron + Kanye, Eli Manning + Rihanna, Peyton Manning+ Carrie Underwood, Ronda Rousey + Selena Gomez, …).
I’m gonna guess they did it purely so they could make a Kelce-Kelsea joke in the promos.
“(and a football man)“I should be annoyed but I’m sadly impressed that the A.V. Club restrained itself from making a ‘Superb Owl” pun.
Superb Owl is always funny.
The corn tortillas in the Ortega taco kit are delicious.
Hard or soft?
My incisors never stop fucking growing, so hard. I have nightmares of malocclusion.
Why not both?
they are an insult to actual tacos
Oh… this means I’m gonna have to explain to my Dad who Jenna Ortega is…. there’s been a couple time this year where he mentions that a female celebrity is really hot then I mention that I’m the same age as her and he gets uncomfortable. He was not a fan of when I told him I’m the same age as Margot Robbie…. now I’m gonna have to explain to him that the gorgeous Jenna Ortega is 20. This should be fun.
My dad has a thing for Dua Lipa and I love to call him a “dirty old man” by explaining that (mathematically) she could be his granddaughter.
Jenna Ortega (and a football team) March to host SNLs’s
Travis Kelce was on Moonbase 8 with Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly. Small role but I wouldn’t say that is exactly “no experience”.
I’m surprised how many people I know, even casual football fans, have no clue who Travis Kelce is. As others have said, I assume Mahomes said no.
They damn well need to get Barkley back to get him into the 5-timers club. He’s a hilarious host, whether intentionally or not.
Imagine heading an article about Simone Biles and calling her “Flipping Girl”. Hypocritical drivel, as usual AV Club.
It’s the classic AV Club nerds from high school using the only “thing” they have in their quivers to make fun of the jocks who have no idea they exist. I was the same kid in high school until I took a business law class that was 90% jocks (I didn’t realize this class was meant to be an easy A class for the school’s athletes). They were actually very cool and kind of adopted me as one of them, even inviting me to their parties where I found the girls were actually not total airheads.