How Would You Do as a Saturday Night Live Host?
I suspect that every Saturday Night Live fan has asked themselves, “How would I do as a host?”
I know I certainly have. It’s a moot question, of course. Never, in a million years, would I be in a position to host. Even if Every Episode Ever exploded in a way I never could have imagined I still wouldn’t be anywhere near popular or famous enough to host the show.
I’m not a comedian. I’m not a Groundlings or Second City alum. I’m not an actor. I’m not a famous musician or Gerald Ford’s press secretary or anything. I’m just a writer and not a particularly successful one at the moment.
That said, Saturday Night Live was once hosted by a total nobody, or rather a nice old woman who won a contest to become a host. I’ve seen that episode but I can not for the life of me remember how she did.
I have tremendous anxiety. Doing a reading for a handful of people stresses me out so I could not imagine how terrified I would be to starring, even temporarily, in a show business institution where some of the best minds in comedy come together and put on a national television show that’s watched and talked about by millions of people.
I’m pretty sure that I would have some manner of panic attack and/or mini-nervous breakdown over the course of my time at 30 Rock. It’s honestly astonishing to me that there is not a long and embarrassing history of Saturday Night Live hosts losing their shit and taking the show down with them. That speaks to what a well-oiled machine Saturday Night Live is and how diligently Lorne Michaels has worked to remove any element of spontaneity or chance from the show.
There is no way in hell that I would be able to remember all of my lines. I don’t know if it’s my ADHD or not but I am genuinely in awe of people who can memorize lines. That, to me, is borderline magical. It doesn’t matter if the lines belong to Hamlet or Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama; I’m just impressed by the ability to act in a production without looking at a script the whole time.
Because I would not be memorizing the script I would be embarrassingly reliant on cue cards during my theoretical hosting stint on Saturday Night Live. Oh, but those sweet, sweet cue cards would save me from public humiliation! Whenever I felt lost or confused, which would be constantly, I would just look over to the cue card guy and see the magical, magical, beautiful words that I am supposed to say next.
I’m sure I would trip all over my lines and have a difficult time hitting my marks. I would make Louise Lasser look like Steve Martin.
Then again, lots of people who are ostensibly even more awkward than myself have hosted Saturday Night Live. If Ralph Nader and Steve Forbes and Fran Tarkenton can all host without humiliating themselves on a historic level why shouldn’t I?
I suppose it’s because even when a non-performer hosts they’re a public figure of some sort and consequently used to communicating with the public in a very direct manner, whereas I am a hermit who hasn’t done a reading in nearly a decade.
If I were inexplicably asked to host Saturday Night Live I would lack the quality hosts need as much as they do comic timing and the ability to poke fun at themselves: confidence. I would have no confidence at all. I would be convinced, not without reason, that my week at 30 Rock would be an unmitigated disaster. That would undoubtedly prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I would be an even worse host than Steven Seagal.
So I ask, dear reader, how would you do as a Saturday Night Live host?
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