It’s not super often that Saturday Night Live signs on one individual to act as both host and musical guest, but that’s just what the show plans to do this January. On Tuesday, NBC announced that Saturday Night Live has signed on Blake Shelton to be the host and the musical guest during the show’s January 24 episode. The hosting and musical guest gig will mark the first time Shelton has appeared on the show.
Blake Shelton may never have hosted an episode of SNL before, but he is a musician who has shown a willingness to market himself outside of the realm of music (where he has nabbed Grammy nominations and CMA awards in the past). The man has done quite well for himself on NBC’s popular reality competition series The Voice. He also popped up in an episode of Reba McEntire’s former comedy series Malibu Country, so he should be pretty familiar with working on-camera. I have no idea if he’s any good with improvisation; regardless, I can’t wait to see how the episode pans out. Additionally, as the musical guest, he should be playing tracks off of his latest album, Bringing Back The Sunshine.
Shelton’s not the guy kicking off 2015, however. That honor will go to Kevin Hart, who signed on to host the first episode of Saturday Night Live after the show’s winter hiatus. We know Hart signed on as part of his promotion for The Wedding Ringer, but although NBC announced Hart’s addition to the show last month, they didn’t announce the musical guest until this morning. Sia will be joining Kevin Hart onstage for the January 17 episode of SNL.
Blake Shelton isn’t the first person from The Voice to have popped up on SNL, which is really no surprise, considering both shows are staples for NBC and networks love an excuse to cross-promote. Adam Levine has also hosted an episode of SNL and Levine’s band, Maroon 5, has performed as the musical guest on the series on several occasions. In fact, Maroon 5 popped up in the Sarah Silverman-hosted Saturday Night Live episode earlier this year.
Saturday Night Live is currently airing its 40th season. It is a season that kicked off with a pretty great Chris Pratt episode, and introduced us to Michael Che and Pete Davidson, as well as gave us more Leslie Jones. The show has done well for itself in what has still been considered a rebuilding season, and there are still plenty of episodes to go. Additionally, if you are interested in looking back at the last 40 years of the late night sketch series, NBC is planning a 40th Anniversary special that will air next month. So, keep your eyes peeled for the special episode, because we doubt it will air live from New York or on a Saturday night.
