"Holy shit," Sarah Silverman retweeted when Saturday Night Live announced she'd be hosting the Oct. 4 show with musical guest Maroon 5. It's Silverman's long-awaited return to SNL, where she got her start as a cast member in 1993 when she was just 23.
During a large part of her monologue Silverman sat on the lap of an audience member. In a nod to her short stint on the show (she lasted just one season), she took questions from her younger self in clips from the '90s. Silverman paid tribute to her hero Joan Rivers, playing her in a roast in heaven with Richard Pryor, Ava Gardner, Ben Franklin, Freddie Mercury, Lucille Ball, Steve Jobs and Eartha Kitt. She teamed up with Kate McKinnon in the soap parody "Supportive Women" and as the feminist folk duo Garage and Her on Weekend Update. In a terrific music sketch, Silverman, Cecily Strong and Sasheer Zamata did their best Tina Turner impersonations to the tune of "Proud Mary." In another, she just came home from Amsterdam where she smoked hash and cheated on her husband. Silverman appeared in every sketch except for the opener in this well-written, inspired episode. Watch it here.
“I could see how it wouldn’t work at SNL, because she’s got her own voice, she’s very much Sarah Silverman all the time," Bob Odenkirk told The New Yorker in 2005. (Odenkirk, like Silverman, was a writer on the show. He's best known those days for his role as Saul on Breaking Bad.)
Bob Odenkirk: 'She can play a character, but she doesn’t disappear into the character - she makes the character her. She doesn’t really do character voices. She puts out stuff that she would appreciate and then you can like it or not - she doesn’t give a shit.'
Silverman is hot, ever since she won an Emmy last month for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for We Are Miracles and, even better, whipped out her vape pen on the red carpet before the show.
Chris Pratt from Parks and Recreation and Guardians of the Galaxy (he's married to Anna Faris) hosted SNL's 40th season premiere on Sept. 27. Recently departed cast member Bill Hader returns as host on Oct. 11.
Holy shit RT @nbcsnl And on 10/4, we've got @SarahKSilverman hosting w/ musical guest, @maroon5!! Kicking off #SNL40 right!
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) September 10, 2014
