Short, Macca back on SNL
Everyone gets a little nostalgic around the holidays — including the folks at Saturday Night Live, who are calling upon Martin Short and Paul McCartney to lead Saturday’s Christmas edition. With a combined age total of 132 (about the same age as SNL, in television years) and a total of five past appearances (two for Short, three for Macca), the two might just coax some SNL fans of Christmases past out of their late-night slumber.
Whether they’ll bring the funny (we say ‘they’ because we all know limelight bandit McCartney will make off with far more than a couple of songs and a polite bow), is still questionable. But if Alec Baldwin’s Schweddy balls are any indication, recurring guests and SNL Christmas specials go together like Justin Timberlake and Color Me Badd hair. Witness this trio of examples:
Consumer Probe (1978), in which SNL underdog Dan Aykroyd (a then-cast member who has guest-starred on the show 11 times) plays awful toy promoter Irwin Mainway. Guest host Candice Bergen manages to maintain her deadpan face while Mainway parades a holiday lineup of dangerous toys, such as Bag O’ Glass, Bag O’Bugs, Bag O’Sulphuric Acid, Teddy Chainsaw Bear and Johnny Switchblade. Classic.
Host and musical guest Timberlake (who has been on the show four times) and cast member Andy Samberg doubled their funny with D— in a Box (2006), both a parody of cheesy ’90s R&B ballads and an instant festive classic that scored SNL some desperately needed buzz for the holidays.
The previously mentioned Schweddy Balls sketch (1998), in which Baldwin (SNL’s most frequent host, with 16 appearances) appears on a conservative talk radio show (Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer host) to share his favourite Christmas recipe for — you guessed it — Schweddy balls. Yes, they borrowed a page from Bart Simpson’s joke book, but that somehow doesn’t make it any less hilarious. (Global — 11:35 p.m., NBC — 12:30 a.m.)
Speaking of Bart Simpson – that little prankster has nothing on Cops, the other Saturday night staple, which is set to premiere its milestone 25th season tonight.
Some call it TV’s original reality show, some call it fascinating, while others just call it trash. Whatever the case, 25 seasons is a heck of a long run for any given series – even for Fox, which debuted Cops back in March of 1989 … before The Simpsons hit the scene in December of that same year.
And since you can’t kick off a 25th season with anything less than extraordinary, the good guys will be chasing down a zebra in Sacramento on tonight’s episode, called Odd Arrests #5. Patrolmen from Toledo, Ohio, will also respond to a domestic disturbance call involving a knife, while the Portland fuzz tends to a suspect chasing another man on a highway overpass with a large stick and a rock. Those bad boys don’t stand a chance. (Fox — 9 p.m.)