Saturday Night Live’s 15 best double-duty hosts
Serving as host and musical guest in the same SNL episode is hard, but stars like Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Britney Spears and Bruno Mars made it look easy
TV Lists Saturday Night Live
As Bad Bunny makes his Saturday Night Live debut on October 21, he’ll be joining a relatively small group of performers who pulled double duty as both the host and the musical guest on the same show. Make no mistake: that shit is hard. You’ve got to be funny, you’ve got to be creative, you’ve got to switch modes from acting to singing at the drop of a hat. And let’s be honest: some musicians just aren’t all that charismatic when it comes to delivering the opening monologue and performing in sketches. That’s not in any way a dig; being funny on the fly and having musical talent are two entirely different things, both of which are very difficult. But that just makes the rare few who actually pull it off even more special.
Sometimes a performer surprises with their versatility, like Paul Simon and his disarming humor and charm. Sometimes it’s not much of a surprise when a musician crushes it as a host—with all that charisma, it would’ve been more shocking if Bruno Mars had bombed. And sometimes there’s an artist with a truly uncanny talent who can bridge the gap between music and sketch, like Ariana Grande and her vocal impressions. Each of the musicians on this list brought something special to the table when they hosted and performed on SNL, and we think that’s worth celebrating. Fingers crossed Bad Bunny pulls it off, too.
25 Comments
I don’t believe Mick Jagger hosted this episode, but the time he appeared as Keith Richards alongside Mike Myers playing Mick was hilarious. I can’t seem to find a good unedited video of it.
I absolutely can picture the exact sketch you’re talking about.
I think they did a Point/Counterpoint bit?
Luke Perry hosted. Mick was the musical guest promoting his solo album, “Wandering Spirit” (Early ‘93). He also did a deep cut appearance on Wayne’s World from that week’s dress (it ended up on some random one-off WW special, and not SNL proper) where he did the WW token “rock star is unexpectedly smart about something” bit based on his legit background in economics education. He did double-duty in 2012, IIRC.
Mick did do double duty in 2012, I remember that episode. Interest that he popped up in two sketches this past weekend after we were talking about him.
The only bad thing about Donald Glover’s appearance is that his song “Saturday” has never been officially released, which is insane because it’s incredible.
Justice for Chance the Rapper, whose hockey sketch is an all time great. I think they’ve really missed an opportunity with Lil Nas X after Montero came out – his album announcement sketches and music videos prove he has acting skills and comedic timing and I think he’d be awesome with double duty.
I looked at the list, I could have sworn Chance the Rapper did double duty, but thought maybe I was mistaken.
His second SNL as a host was double duty! He got a B+ from this very site.So did Billie Eilish who also crushed it ! Both should be on this list.
I forgot about Billie Eilish too, and yeah, both were solid.
He did! I wrote my comment in a confusing way – I was saying CTR should be on this list, and Lil Nas X should be given double duty.
I got you. I would be interested to see a Lil Nas X show.
Chance as Steve Harvey’s secret illegitimate son on Family Feud was also a classic.
Chance the Rapper blew me away when he hosted. To this day I bring signs to hockey games that say “Go do that hockey!”
Ah, yes. The digital short in 1983.
Were they calling them ‘digital shorts’ in 1983?
They were called Analog Culottes back then.
Hello? Ray Charles? “The Young Caucasians”? “Please don’t tell him”?
Garth Brooks: also pretty good from what I remember.
The biggest missing star I see is Garth Brooks. I wasn’t a fan of his music and wasn’t expecting all that much, but that dude was ridiculously funny. Especially in the two sketches with Mango.
What about Garth Brooks? He was hilarious and hosted twice iirc. I think the musical guest on one of them was Chris Gaines though. Old French Whore, the best Mango sketch, full Smurf body paint, The Devil Can’t Write No Love Song, Cowboy Campfire… he was great!
I can still sing some of the song snippets from “Devil Can’t Write No Love Song.” Can’t recall a single line from either of the Chris Gaines songs.
Sting back in 1991 played Billy Idol in the famous Sinatra Group sketch.
Classic sketch w/Phil Hartman. “I got chunks of guys like you in my stool”.
I feel that there should have been a nod to the WORST double duty performance on SNL, which in my opinion was Frank Zappa on Oct. 21, 1978.