I’m always leery when Saturday Night Live rolls out the welcome mat for real-life folks to host the show — meaning people who aren’t actors, comedians, musicians or employed in some other entertainment-related field, and thus make a certain amount of sense to guest-host a sketch-comedy show.

True, A number of athletes and politicians have survived the experience pretty much intact (The Rock nailed his first appearance before he became a movie star, and Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Al Gore all did well). But I still have nightmares about 2002’s disastrous show with skier and Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley. So I wasn’t anxious to see Peyton Manning, who cemented his status as a national darling with his Super Bowl win in February, embarrass himself on March 24. Sure, he’s been engaging and funny in his numerous commercials, but live television is a whole ‘nother ball game. Turns out I needn’t have worried — for the second time in two months, homeboy came through in the clutch. 

Granted, the writers threw him a couple of easy passes, placing him in sketches that didn’t require a lot of heavy lifting, and left the grunt work to others (like the “Bronx Beat” skit or the flat 300 sketch). But when they snapped him the ball, he delivered. The faux United Way commercial was hilarious, as was the sketch about the losing basketball team. In addition, he good-naturedly submitted to a little mandatory ribbing about his “can’t come through when it matters” rep, and displayed some good comic timing. In short, he was funny. I wouldn’t cast him in a romantic comedy just yet, but he just might be able to pull off a second career in films if he’s so inclined — I mean, again, look at The Rock.

On a related note, I’m happy to say that although I haven’t watched a lot of SNL this season, what I’ve seen has mostly eased my fears about the show (as voiced back in September of last year). Alec Baldwin’s most recent guest-hosting gig was a gut-buster, and even Drew Barrymore and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (neither of whom I’m crazy about) turned in some solid work recently. (And, okay, Justin Timberlake too.) Among the newcomers from last season, Kristin Wiig and Jason Sudeikis have come into their own as performers, and Bill Hader’s not far behind (Andy Samberg just bugs me; I don’t know why). I’m still not convinced Weekend Update needs two anchors (especially Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers), but on the whole the show’s doing well. I still miss Chris Parnell, though.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Television, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.