‘Saturday Night Live’ preview: First look at Louis C.K. (with Kenan Thompson)

Anytime that you have Louis C.K. on your show, you have to adjust your expectations upward a little. This is a man regarded to be by many to be one of the best comedians working right now in the business, and for good reason. He’s completely sharp, writes his material well, and knows his character.

But bring that to “Saturday Night Live,” and what happens? You automatically expect a “Louie” caliber show even when he is not able to write, edit, and do just about everything else when it comes to making it a success. He’s a host who is involved, but has to rely a lot on other people. In the promo below, one of these people is Kenan Thompson, and it is … okay. It’s not the best promo we’ve ever seen, but we laughed a couple of times. It is certainly not the worst.

There is one other bit of breaking news in here, and that is the revelation that the musical guest for this episode is Sam Smith. When Louis was first announced as the host for the show, there was no musical guest booked at the time. If you are not that familiar with Smith (which is understandable, given that we were not, either), he is a British artist who is one of the rising stars in the industry. “SNL” is great at discovering these sort of people who mainstream viewers may still be getting to know, and helping to propel them to an even greater level of fame. They are practically a background at this point for Arcade Fire, given how many times we have seen them perform on the show over the years.

What do you think about Louis’ first promo? Disappointed? Share below.