Saturday Night Live is well into the throes of the new season. Three hosts have already appeared in brand new episodes, and this week, NBC announced that two prolific comedians will be popping up in the coming weeks. According to the network, both Chris Rock and Jim Carrey will be making rare appearances on the series very soon.
SNL makes casting announcements all the time, but Carrey and Rock are particularly special. Carrey is set to pop up on the show, first, hosting the episode of SNL that will air on October 25. Despite the fact that Carrey has been a prolific and popular comedian since the 1990’s, he’s only appeared on the show twice—once in 1996 and then again in 2011. This time around, he’s promoting Dumb and Dumber 2, which will hit theaters in November.
Rock’s appearance is an even bigger deal than Carrey’s. Like Carrey, he hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live way back in 1996. Unlike the other comedian, he hasn’t hosted another episode in the 18 years subsequent. Rock was actually a member of SNL in the early 1990s, making the fact that he hasn't appeared in more than a decade even stranger. Former members of the series often enjoy returning to host the show, but after that one gig in the nineties, Rock presumably got busy with other projects and hasn’t been back. He’ll appear to host the series for a second time on November 1.
It gets better. Iggy Azalea, the rapper who has blown up with the hit “Fancy,” will make her debut during the episode opposite Carrey. Popular rappers are not particularly unusual, although Azalea is big enough at this point that she deserves a slot on the late night series. However, the Rock episode is getting a much weirder musical guest. According to NBC, Prince is coming off the brand new release of Art Official Age and Plectrumelectrum and is using SNL as a platform to share the new music, although I wouldn’t mind if he threw in some of the classics, as well.
Although I was a fan of this week’s Hader-based episode, SNL has had a bit of a rough start this season with a new member at the Weekend Update table and an underwhelming episode from Sarah Silverman. Not only does SNL have some heavy-hitting comedians coming up, they also have some pretty interesting musical guest choices. If there are any episodes of SNL you plan to tune in for this season, we politely suggest these.
NBC’s late night sketch comedy series airs on Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m. ET. Recent episodes of the series can be revisited over at Hulu.
