‘Saturday Night Live’ preview: Michael Keaton ‘charms’ Cecily Strong, (sort of) brings back Batman

Is it a regular thing for “Saturday Night Live” to air a new episode the night before Easter? It does not feel like it, and it seems like somewhat of a risky proposition. More viewers likely attend church on Easter Sunday than just about any other day of the year, which means that they’ll be too busy getting some sleep to really focus on zany comedy.

That’s a shame, given that we are very much intrigued by what may be going on with Michael Keaton as a host for this weekend. The actor is coming off of an awards-show tour with “Birdman,” which won Best Picture at the Oscars. However, and as is pointed out in silly fashion in the video below featuring Cecily Strong, he was not so successful at winning Best Actor. It’s good to see that he already has a sense of humor about it, given that there was that whole viral shot of him putting away his speech after Eddie Redmayne was declared the winner.

As for the rest of the promo, we’ll go ahead and admit that we totally freaked out when we heard Keaton say “I’m Batman,” mostly because of it being such a nice nod to days gone by, and who may be the greatest live-action Batman of them all (at least in our minds). Heck, we’d rather see Keaton put on the suit again at his age now than either Val Kilmer or George Clooney in their prime.

Comedy-wise, this promo is okay at best … but don’t take that as a terrible omen that this weekend will have a stinker of a show. We barely laughed at all during promos featuring The Rock, and he turned out to be one of the best hosts of the season. Read our full review, and watch videos from the episode, right here.

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