‘SNL’ spends a night at the Oscars with Will Smith

In his opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live,” host and comedian Jerrod Carmichael swore he wouldn’t. “I won’t talk about it,” he said. He didn’t even have to say what He. She I was.

But “SNL” certainly found several ways to deal with the widely discussed incident from last weekend’s Oscars, in which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock (former SNL cast member) after making a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith.

The Slap was tackled live in a sketch that aired nearly halfway through the show, in which Chris Reed played Smith and Carmichael as seat fillers at the Academy Awards who find himself next to Smith in the moments before Rock’s notes.

Carmichael initially declared that he was a fan of Smith’s movie, saying he liked his movie The Pursuit of Happiness and still used his song “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” as his ringtone. He asked if he could take a selfie as they noticed that Rock had appeared on stage.

Then, we heard Rock’s voice utter a now-infamous joke: “Jada, I love you.” GI Jane 2 “I can’t wait to see her.”

“Hey, I’ll be right back, man,” Reed said to Carmichael, and walked away from the shot.

Then we heard the slap and watched the expression on Carmichael’s face change from delight to bewilderment.

When Reed carelessly returned to his seat, Carmichael asked, “Hey, where are you from, man?”

“Oh, nowhere, man,” he said, a shaken Carmichael stammered in response.

Redd continued to have a conversation with Carmichael while occasionally shouting lewd remarks on stage.

Soon, the two were joined by Kyle Mooney, playing another seat filler who was oblivious to Carmichael’s nonverbal warnings to stay away.

“Oh my God, are we next to Will Smith?” Mony shouted. “I should tweet this.” “It’s heading,” he said while suddenly becoming nervous.

Red introduced himself to Mooney, who was still buoyant, and asked him, “What’s your name?”

Uncomfortably, he replied, “I don’t – they didn’t give me one.”

Reed said the past two years have been complicated because the Covid and Zoom meetings and — his voice is trembling here — Red table discussion.

When Carmichael’s phone rang, he tried to stop him from playing “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” but Redd told him not to turn it off. “Don’t answer that, man!” He said. “Let it ring! Everything is beautiful, all of you!”

Opening monologue of the week

At the beginning of his monologue, Carmichael made his claim that he wouldn’t discuss the slap – “Aren’t you sick of talking about it?” Ask the audience—while still thinking about it, without actually describing it or naming its participants.

Although he was excited about the topic at the start of the week, Carmichael said, “By Friday, I vowed — I promised myself I’d never talk about it again.” That changed after Lorne Michaels, SNL’s creator and executive producer, Carmichael said, paid a visit to his dressing room.

“It was like, ‘I think you need to talk about it,'” he said. “He said the nation needed to be healed.”

Carmichael also spoke about his new HBO special, “Rothaniel.” Who comes out as gay. In response to the audience’s applause, Carmichael said it “was fantastic but expected in New York.”

He continued, “That’s why I actually live here. If you say you’re gay in New York, you can take the bus for free and people just give you pizza. Honestly, if you’re gay in New York, you can host ‘Saturday Night Live’.” That’s the most attractive thing which you can do.”

In the final moments of his monologue, Carmichael took the opportunity to address former President Obama. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I have some news for you, Barack.” “You won’t like it. We want you to come back because I think you’ll have to talk about it. The nation needs to heal.”

Cool open for the week

The initial sketch this weekend was a parody of “Fox & Friends” featuring Alex Moffat, Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day as hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade. Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon as Judge Clarence Thomas and Jenny Thomas; Cecily Strong as Judge Janine Perrault.

The sketch ended with James Austin Johnson, in his recurring role as ex-President Trump, who couldn’t resist offering his thoughts on the smack.

“I saw a slap,” Johnson said, like Trump. “I enjoyed the slap. I was very impressed with Hitch. Quite an arm over a hitch. I always knew Hitch had an arm.” Still, he said the Academy Awards were a sad night: “That kind of behavior isn’t going to help Kevin James get a date with Allegra Cole, I’ll tell you that,” he explained.

Jokes update weekend of the week

In the Weekend Update desk, anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che kept talking—what else? – Slap.

Jost began:

Intelligence officials say Vladimir Putin is being misled by advisers about how badly the Russian military is doing in Ukraine. Which is kind of like what Will Smith’s agent told him, “You crushed him at the Oscars.” Will Smith — for those of you who don’t know — walked onto stage during the Academy Awards and slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. Which I think was a disgraceful act that sets a terrible precedent Having to defend your wife in award shows.

Chi added:

During his acceptance speech, Will Smith said, “Love will make you do crazy things.” Do you know what makes you do crazy things too? crazy. But I understand where Will comes from. You can’t expect him to sit there and watch another man jump over his wife without signing a nondisclosure agreement

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Yesterday, Will Smith Resigned From the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He wasn’t going to, but then Jada gave him that look. If Will Smith had been expelled, he would have joined a small group of people expelled from the academy including Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein. Or, as they are also known, “Bad Boys for Life”.

Guest update this weekend

Just when it seemed like every celebrity you could think of had commented on the slap, “SNL” found one who had a few other ideas to share: OJ Simpson, played by Thompson on a visit to the Weekend Update office.

When Che asked if he sided with Smith or Rock, Thompson tenderly replied, “You know me—I hate conflict.” He also claimed that he did not understand Rock’s reference to “GI Jin”. When explained to him that it was a ’90s movie, Thompson replied, “The ’90s? Oh, I don’t remember anything from the ’90s.”