Saturday Night Livefinally asked past cast memberWill Forteback to host, and he returned to promote the first season of his showMacGruber. With that came a lot of jokes in Forte’s opening monologue about how his former coworkers all got asked back to host, some multiple times, prior to his return to Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center. Listing people likeJason Sudeikis,Andy Samberg, and more, Forte made it clear that he was both excited for his friends but also angry that he was just now there.
Made that much more upsetting for Forte whenKristen Wiigshows up being him and gets more applause. Forte was a cast member onSaturday Night Livefrom 2002 to 2010, spanning eight years of the sketch comedy show and working with impressive comedy legends and making a comedy legend out of himself. Forte’s sketches are still talked about and you can’t really think of the Gilly sketches he did with Wiig without hearing him saying “Gillyyyyyyy”. So his monologue is both a hilarious return for Forte to theSaturday Night Livestage while also pointing out that Forte is just as good (and famous) as his former castmates.
The entire bit of the monologue is just that Forte is both glad to be there and angry it took so long. Leaving in 2010, it’s been 12 years since he’s been on the show. Something that Forte points out. “I was in the cast 12 years ago with Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, and Fred Armisan,” he said, making it clear that all of those cast mates had also hosted themselves. He even brought up the fact thatJohn Mulaneywas a writer onSaturday Night Livewhen Forte was a cast member and even he hosted before him.
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So it’s nice to know that he finally got his chance, even ifLorne Michaelshad bits. Like having next week’s hostWillem Dafoeshow up early to tell Forte that he thought that it was supposed to be his week with Michaels making a joke about having a host named Will followed up by a host named Willem.
The entire episode was a return to what made Forte such an amazing cast member onSaturday Night Livebut this opening monologue really showed fans what made Forte so hilarious while he was on the show and why we all still love his work.
