‘Saturday Night Live’ wishlist: Why Timothy Olyphant of ‘Santa Clarita Diet’ should host

Through the past several weeks, we’ve embarked on a new article series geared mostly around one idea: Trying to pinpoint people from the TV universe who would be great as “Saturday Night Live” hosts. We’ve looked so far at people like former show writer Bob Odenkirk, “The Walking Dead” star Andrew Lincoln, and even the two-person team of Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan from “Outlander.”

Today, we’re talking about someone who’s been quite a revelation to us thanks to “Santa Clarita Diet” on Netflix in Timothy Olyphant. Did we know he was funny before this? Absolutely, since we’ve seen him on some comedies and in interviews before this. Yet at the same time, this show, much like “Vice Principals” did for Walton Goggins, helped us to realize just how funny he really is. He’s hilarious on the Netflix series alongside Drew Barrymore, especially when it comes to having really great timing and tackling physical comedy in a way we hadn’t seen before.

After all of this, it feels pretty clear that he should get a chance to stop by Studio 8H at some point in the future — after all, it couldn’t be any more timely thanks to the recent success of the show.

Ways to use him – It’s hard to do a parody of “Santa Clarita Diet” because the show on its own is so wacky and silly in its own right. Yet, at the same time we do think that there are some great opportunities to have him circumvent the tough-guy roles that he’s often assigned to play like Raylan. Have him really amp up the silliness, and do parts in sketches that are very big and zany. Maybe you throw one low-key role in there to change things up and to keep people on your toes. Also, we’d love to see a “Justified” parody, though we realize that it may be a tad dated and not relevant enough for the modern “SNL” viewer.

Could it happen? – In theory sure, but most of the names that we’re bringing up in this series are longshots just on the basis of the sketch show not really having much of an interest in casting people from television as hosts these days. The other issue with Olyphant is timing, given that you want to hire him while “Santa Clarita Diet” is still big. Unfortunately, it’s not clear when their next show is going to be after tomorrow’s with Alec Baldwin; you may have to wait for a potential second season of the Netflix comedy to bring him on board.

Do you think that Olyphant should come on board “SNL”? Share in the comments below, and head over here to get some more news right now when it comes to “Saturday Night Live” and our wishlist series! (Photo: NBC.)