SNL: Tina Fey Returns To Host Season Finale
SNL: Tina Fey Returns To Host Season Finale
Saturday Night Live is lowering the curtain for the summer with Tina Fey and Nicki Minaj leading the final bow as season 43 wraps up.
Tina Fey is the third former cast member to host Saturday Night Live this season, after Will Ferrel and Bill Hader. She spent nine years on Saturday Night Live, holding several roles including head writer and cast member. But it’s her time behind the Weekend Update desk that she is probably most known for by regular SNL viewers, because she didn’t often appear in sketches beyond it. Fey was co-anchor on Update from 2000 to 2006, sharing duty first with Jimmy Fallon, then alongside Amy Poehler.
Check out a super young Fey and Fallon doing Weekend Update in early 2001:
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Wow, what babies!
As for what she’s most known for by folks who never caught the show while she was employed there, well that has to be her guest appearances in 2008 and beyond as former governor of Alaska and one-time Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Fey had Palin’s mannerisms and look down. There was even one sketch during the 2008 presidential election, the cold open was just Fey repeating one of Palin’s speeches from earlier in the week, verbatim. SNL even brought her back during the 2016 election when Palin endorsed Donald Trump.
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Since leaving Saturday Night Live in 2006, Tina Fey has returned to host many times; this Saturday’s episode will be Fey’s sixth time hosting. Even though she barely appeared in sketches as a cast member, Fey falls in seamlessly when she hosts the show, bring about among the most truly unusual and bizarre sketches SNL has seen – such as this disturbing and grotesque game show from when she co-hosted with Amy Poehler a few years back:
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So what will a 2018 Fey-hosted season finale look like? Probably a long Weekend Update segment headed by Fey. Probably not a Palin impression. And with such a high profile friend of Saturday Night Live closing out a high-profile season, probably guest appearances. All the stops will be pulled for this episode, so expect cameos – Fey has a big list of famous friends, from former cast members to huge film stars to television compatriots. There’s just too big of a list to really speculate, especially giving the amount of high profile and surprising cameos from earlier this season.
Speaking of, it’s been a blast, hasn’t it? It’s a shame that Saturday Night Live‘s studio will be dark and won’t be back until the weather turns cold again. But what better way to warm up than with joyous laughter on a late weekend evening?
Be sure to tune in to Saturday Night Live May 19 at 11.35 et/8.30 pt for the season finale, hosted by Tina Fey with musical guest Nicki Minaj!