Saturday Night Live – James Franco preview: What should expectations be?
Why is that? Much of it starts with the host itself. Franco is basically the perfect actor to host a show like SNL — he’s funny, affable, goofy, and completely unpredictable. He does about a million different things and does them however he wants. The most memorable sketches over the years with this show are the ones that take the biggest risks. While risk-taking often leads to a few duds that we’ll never remember, without risks we’d never get some classics including Farewell Mr. Bunting, the entire Stefon character during Weekend Update, or bittersweet pretapes like Sad Mouse. Creativity is key for SNL — while we do like sketches like Whiskers R We and the occasional game-show parody, they’re not things that will be remembered as individual iterations years down the line. Franco will push the envelope.
Beyond just this, there’s a comfort that comes in him hosting the show before — the cast knows and understands his comedic sensibilities and he’s also game for some more physical humor. One of the best examples of that comes in the second promo below, which is a pretty amusing sight gag that shows him struggling to skate on the ice rink outside of Rockefeller Center. Franco’s own personal Winter Wonderland is a little bit more of a winter disaster.
We expect Franco to take a few turns at timely topics, but also to just be silly and have a great time. He likely understands SNL as the playground that it can be for actors to let loose and show different sides of themselves.
As for musical guest SZA we’re not anticipating anything other than her doing some of what she does best: Getting on stage and performing. She’s not someone who may be super-familiar to show viewers, so this is a chance to introduce herself musically. She’s already got a good many Grammy nominations to her name so getting this performance is the icing atop what is a rather great cake for her in 2017.
Have any expectations for James Franco hosting SNL this weekend? Share in the comments below!
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