If only the show could find a tight end.
Well, one thing’s for certain. Kansas City native Heidi Gardner would be excited to see Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in the building to host Saturday Night Live, which would make for at least one more cast member excited for this week’s episode than we saw last week for the lackluster Woody Harrelson experience. Would any SNL people be even a wee bit distracted by Chris Rock’s own live Netflix special happening between SNL’s dress rehearsal and their live telecast, tho? Let’s find out together!
FOX & Friends finds Steve Doocy (Mikey Day), Ainsley Earhardt (Heidi Gardner) and Brian Kilmeade (Bowen Yang) dancing around their employer’s lawsuit against Dominion for defaming the company’s vote-counting capabilities. Kilmeade confuses Dominion for those Minions, while Earhardt confuses her boss Rupert Murdoch for newly convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh. They try to put those incriminating FOX News employee texts into proper context, but then they also invite MyPillow guy Mike Lindell (James Austin Johnson) onto the show, which doesn’t quite help their cause. Or their case.
Athletes can bring a mixed bag to the show. Most football players have been quarterbacks, who already have the temperament and skills to call an audible (best case scenario: Peyton Manning). But NFL fans certainly saw Kelce’s uninhibited ability to call out haters and his willing to make a fool of himself on live television in post-game interviews. So why not put him in Studio 8H for a week and see what happens, right?
Manning wished Kelce luck.
But Kelce reminded those of us who aren’t avid E!-heads that he already was a reality star of sorts, even if Peacock said “nah, we good” when given the chance to stream his 2016 dating series, Chasing Kelce. That moment made his older brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce, chuckle. The bros would make each other laugh again before the night was through.
Kelce ran a great post route through creepy to find the comedy end zone in this American Girl Cafe sketch, playing a pink-suitted guy who just wants to enjoy lunch with his two dolls, despite the waiter (Mikey), the manager (Gardner), and the other adults there (Kenan Thompson, Sarah Sherman) with their own human kids wondering if Kelce is just a perv or a pedophile in disguise. The moment where he tilts the heads on his dolls and waves their hands at a boy doll at the next table? Priceless.
Kelce also plays a central role in this week’s “please don’t destroy” video, which finds the trio taking Kurt Lightning’s self-defense class so they can earn the respect of their SNL interns, who think they’re “bitch boys.” After a couple of KOs and an almost fatal run-in with a granny, did the boys prove their worth? Not exactly.
Kelce may have stood behind the podium at Miss Glenda’s funeral as nurse and lover to this mother and grandmother, but it’s the dearly departed Miss Glenda (Ego) who does all the lifting, heavy or otherwise, in this live sketch. After Dillon unveils Miss Glenda, revealing her to be taxidermied and sitting in a chair, her family also sees that she’s permanently holding a pack of menthol cigarettes in one hand, a 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper in the other, a cig in her mouth, all while wearing shades in her Tweety Bird nightgown. Dillon also can pull a string from her back to make her say a few of her “favorite” things, while hydraulics allow her to “dance.
