‘SNL’: Will Forte’s Host Debut Crashed by 3 Special Guest Stars

Will Forte finally got his chance at hosting Saturday Night Live recently, but he immediately felt overshadowed by a few major guests, including a former castmate. In his opening monologue, Forte joked that he was “bitter” about waiting so long to host SNL – especially after watching so many of his former co-stars host multiple times. As he spoke, Kristen Wiig crept up behind him as the first in a series of gags where his episode was crashed.

Forte threw out names including Wiig, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers and John Mulaney at the beginning of his monologue. He noted that they had all worked together but that each of them had been asked to host before him – in some cases, multiple times. “But now, it’s finally my turn,” he said as Wiig emerged behind him. He then pretended to mistake the audience’s uproarious cheers for him.

It didn’t stop there, as Forte turned to the audience for a question and called on SNL creator Lorne Michaels. Michaels told him that there had been a mistake, and that the episode was actually supposed to be hosted by Willem Dafoe. Dafoe himself appeared briefly to apologize to Forte.

After Wiig pretended to upstage Forte in his monologue, she hung around for the night and returned for two more other sketches. She appeared in all three of the night’s “MacGruber” sketches, along with actor Ryan Philippe. Although Philippe was never a cast member on SNL, his presence certainly played to Forte’s earlier joke.

Finally, Wiig joined Forte on stage again for a sketch called “Jackie & Clancy.” In it, they played an eccentric country music duo reuniting after a long hiatus and selling their new album via infomercial. They were introduced by Kenan Thompson playing a character named “Jevner Keeblepooble.”

There’s no doubt that Forte came from one of the most acclaimed classes of SNL stars in recent memory. Some commenters were even surprised to hear Forte say it had been 12 years since he left the show. They remarked that it felt like his run on SNL had just recently ended.

These days, Forte’s career is closer to SNL than it has been in years since he is working on the Peacock original series MacGruber. The character and concept began as an SNL sketch and evolved into a spinoff movie in 2010. It was considered an underrated cult classic for years, and it was finally revived as a TV show last year.

MacGruber premiered on Dec. 16 with 8 episodes dropping all at once. In his SNL monologue, Forte pulled a fake-out on the audience, saying: “I would like to officially announce that MacGruber has been picked up for Season 2. I would like to announce that, but it hasn’t been picked up yet, so I can’t. You know, we’re waiting to hear.”

MacGruber Season 1 is streaming now on Peacock, but there’s no word yet on the future of the series. SNL is streaming there as well, and on Hulu. SNL will be back next Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.