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Television

Elon Musk Will Host 'Saturday Night Live' on May 8th (usatoday.com) 134

After 45 years, NBC's popular TV show "Saturday Night Live" has lined up its richest guest host ever. CNN reports: In one of the more surprising announcements in the recent history of "Saturday Night Live," the NBC variety show said Saturday that its next host will be Elon Musk, the eccentric CEO of Tesla and one of the richest people on the planet.
USA Today adds: The coveted slot, usually occupied by British actors like Carey Mulligan or former boy band members like Nick Jonas, is now reserved on May 8 for Tesla CEO and SpaceX chief engineer, Musk.

He'll be joined by musical guest Miley Cyrus...

The official Twitter page for "SNL" announced the news in its usual format, a photo of sticky notes with the guest's name. "SNL" captioned the tweet with three rocket ship emojis.

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Elon Musk Will Host 'Saturday Night Live' on May 8th

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  • I assume (Score:5, Funny)

    by niftydude ( 1745144 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @05:42PM (#61310000)
    he'll use the opportunity to pump dogecoin to a whole new demographic of Americans.

    To the moon I guess.
  • So Elon is Mr "who cares what the left says, I'm making jokes about whatever I want and made up gender words are bullshit, cancel deez nuts" and SNL is basically a far left propaganda cult that stopped being funny years ago. So...how the hell did this happen?
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      Okay folks, everybody off his lawn!
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Well, to start, SNL isn't propaganda or particularly on the left. Also, it never "stopped being funny" because it's always had a 5-10% "funny skit" ratio, you just are looking back and selectively remembering the good skits.

      To follow with Elon is "I don't have a good sense of humor, so I'm just going to insult people and call it humor." Humor is often irreverent, but it's one of those "all a are b" doesn't imply "all b are a" situations.

      • Well, to start, SNL isn't propaganda or particularly on the left

        You cannot possibly be this delusional.

        • by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @08:55PM (#61310454)

          Well, to start, SNL isn't propaganda or particularly on the left

          You cannot possibly be this delusional.

          Modern Republicans just do more shit that deserves to be mocked. When they poked fun of Obama the jokes never landed because Obama's major shortcomings were complicated policy matters (his capitulation to the intelligence apparatus, his moves in the Middle East). Tina Fey's wicked takedown of Sarah Palin was achieved by literally quoting her word for word. Likewise, Alec Baldwin's Trump was so successful because it so accurately exaggerated the man's many shortcomings.

          To top it all off, there are a bunch of Republican politicians who pretend to be stupid to appeal to their base, while Democrats try and pretend to be smarter than they are to appeal to their base. In the former case, they're just asking to be mocked.

          • Modern Republicans just do more shit that deserves to be mocked.

            And the irony of this is lost on you. When you go to a football match do you ever notice how the other team, despite being exactly like your team only wearing a different jersey, are always the bad guys? They always cheat, and the ref always lets them off etc etc?

            Entertainment and media are run and operated by right brain types (emotion over logic), so they predominately see the world through that lens. Left wing politics appeals the these people because they have a preference for nice looking, charming,

            • In your desire to be so supremely logical, you have so reduced complex phenomena to the point where it's easy for you to create a worldview where everything is categorized with clear causal relationships, but this world you have created in your mind is such an imperfect simulation of the real world that one could hardly be said to be reflective of the other.

              Left wing politics = Keynesian economics = logical

              Right wing politics = supply side economics = illogical

              Left wing politics = accepting climate science

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @09:55PM (#61310534)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday April 25, 2021 @07:55AM (#61311448) Homepage Journal

            and who spent his entire presidency doing virtually nothing except posting antagonistic 280 character messages to a social media website, was somehow a great President. Think about that seriously for a moment.

            that's not fair at all! he also played a whole lot of golf without managing to ever be any good at it.

      • Your center is obviously off kilter. They're left, maybe not left of you, but they're left. If you look at who they make fun of during political humor it should be obvious. Whenever they dare to have non pc humor, there's backlash. âoeThe dating app Tinder announced a new feature this week which gives users 37 different gender identity options,â Jost said. âoeItâ(TM)s called âWhy Democrats lost the election.â(TM)â
        • I looked at their political humor. It seems pretty center of the road. Actually, they seem more skewed to show Republicans in a good light than Democrats.

          Funny you talk about backlash, the only time I remember an on-air apology was to a right-wing congressman.

      • SNL is extreme left and hasn't been funny in decades.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
          Just drinking the GOP kool-aid. I'm surprised you didn't use the phrase radical socialist left.

          SNL pokes fun at ridiculousness in politics. It just so happens most of the bat shit crazy stuff comes from GOP members these days.

          And it not being funny in decades.. that's what everyone says. Only the cast that people grew up watching was the funny one, everything since sucks!

          Go back and watch episodes from the 70s.. full episodes, not just the highlights. I'm sure you'll find plenty of duds even back
      • SNL isn't propaganda or particularly on the left. Also, it never "stopped being funny" because it's always had a 5-10% "funny skit" ratio, you just are looking back and selectively remembering the good skits.

        No, way back in the day back the ratio was way higher than 5-10%. It was more frequently absurdist and that, as it turns out, is a great way to actually be funny. Plus, pretty much the whole cast was made up of people who turned out to be goddamned legends.

        However, I assert that SNL is actually quite funny again. Sure, they still have misses, but they had a bad lull there for a while and that seems to be over. In particular, the vast majority of comedic musical numbers have tended to be hilarious.

    • They want the hottest celebs on the show, so they got the hottest celeb. No mystery there... unless you've got some kind of affliction that causes you to politicize and obsess over anything you dislike. In that case, "Musk on SNL" is only the least consequential thing you'll fail to understand.

  • by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @05:54PM (#61310034)

    The jokes will be about himself.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Have you seen his guest spot on The Big Bang Theory?

      https://youtu.be/KGR5HP3KSBk [youtu.be]

      He's extremely wooden and has no comedic ability at all. Unless he has improved considerably since then this is going to be cringe TV.

      • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        He's a terrible presenter and public speaker, even when he's talking about his companies and what he knows best. Occasionally he'll have an interview where he gets into the nitty-gritty details, but I don't see him explaining the nuances of rocket engines on SNL

      • by leptons ( 891340 )
        I'm not sure who I'd like to see host SNL less... Musk or Zuckerberg. Those are two wooden creeps that don't need to be given any stage.
  • ...to cancel my cable service.

    • Because you love this idea so much? SNL (on NBC) is OTA.

      • Because you love this idea so much? SNL (on NBC) is OTA.

        Maybe he lives in an apartment and cannot put up an aerial antenna. It's a stupid reason to cancel cable, but geography or a housing situation preventing you from getting a proper signal is a common reason to subscribe to basic cable.

        • Aerial antennas died when we switched to digital. Antennas still exist, but they don't need to be on a roof anymore.

          • Aerial antennas died when we switched to digital. Antennas still exist, but they don't need to be on a roof anymore.

            Obstructions and LOS still matter. You get more channels with less antenna, but that's because there are more channels on the same spectrum. The networks are still broadcasting from the same locations. If you live somewhere really flat, you're probably right.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Dude, you do realize NBC is broadcast terrestrially too, right? Just because your screen doesn't have a tuner doesn't mean they stop beaming the show directly at your skull.
    • If you’ve waited this long to “cut the cord”, you might as well just keep it. Having cable TV is almost trendy retro-counter-culture, like listening to cassette tapes, at this point.

  • If no it is hopeless.

  • by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @06:13PM (#61310088)
    If he says:

    Bitcoin: 1 drink.
    Dogecoin: 1 drink and make a shitpost on 4chan.
    Mars: 1 drink and jump off a piece of furniture
    Texas: 1 shot of tequila
    SN 9, 10, or 11: 3 flaming drinks for the set
    Starship: Crush a beer can against your forehead
    Artemis: 1 shot for each mention, and moon someone if he says it four times
    Twitter: 1 drink, taken by the tablespoon whilst starting an argument.
    Venus: 2 drinks
    Boring: look at a drink and pretend you drank it
    • I'm down for this.

      The only problem is - it requires watching Saturday Night Live. I've occasionally tried watching it during the past few years, but that show seems to have turned into an unintentional parody of itself. But maybe watching while drinking will make it bearable.

      • You'll also have to sit through Miley Cyrus singing or whatever it is she does.
        • That'd be the perfect time to get up grab another bottle!

        • Lately she sounds like a 60 year old country singer who chain smokes. So a real country singer in other words.

        • She was just on Fallon playing the sing-the-translation game and her voice is frankly phenomenal.

          I don't care for "her" music (that is, the studio productions with her name on them) but frankly, criticizing her singing ability is way off track.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Same is true today. It's worth watching in my view, but you have to be prepared to sit through some stuff that's self absorbed or just plain not funny.

          This is why the best way to watch it is the same as, well, pretty much any sketch comedy show... on a platform that makes it easy to skip content. If you watch it on youtube with an adblocker you can go to the playlist for the show which puts all the material in order, and then you can easily skip whole sketches if you like. I usually use this functionality to skip the musical guest :)

      • I watch but I'm heavy-handed with the fast forward button.
      • by Megane ( 129182 )
        DVR it (there's no reason to lose sleep for that tripe) and be ready in the morning with the fast forward button. And yes, with your favorite adult beverage in hand if you must. It'll be the first time I've even acknowledged the shows existence in years, and I'll only be watching this for dank memes.
    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Mod parent funnier.

  • Is this what they mean when they say, "car crash tv"?
  • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @06:16PM (#61310104)

    It's obvious from his presentations he kind of gets in front his words, he's not a great public speaker, he's just usually talking about something interesting and making a lot of visionary claims.

    I feel bad for the writers, they probably less appreciate having to incorporate people not of the comedy/acting profession as you can't just put musk in a key part and expect him to do it justice. I mean the weakest guest stars are usually sports figures and politicians and the best are people with some comedy chops.

    Will be interesting to see though if he lets some of the skits really take the piss out of him.

    • It's obvious from his presentations he kind of gets in front his words, he's not a great public speaker, he's just usually talking about something interesting and making a lot of visionary claims.

      His skill is that he's very inspirational. He gets people to work very hard because of that, and smart people are happy to do so.

      • It's obvious from his presentations he kind of gets in front his words, he's not a great public speaker, he's just usually talking about something interesting and making a lot of visionary claims.

        His skill is that he's very inspirational. He gets people to work very hard because of that, and smart people are happy to do so.

        You know what your two takes share in common? Both describe a terrible choice for a sketch show guest host.

        • You know what your two takes share in common? Both describe a terrible choice for a sketch show guest host.

          Oh, sounds like a good match for a terrible sketch show, then.

          • You know what your two takes share in common? Both describe a terrible choice for a sketch show guest host.

            Oh, sounds like a good match for a terrible sketch show, then.

            Zing. I know it's cliche to complain that SNL used to be better, but... wasn't it?

            • Zing. I know it's cliche to complain that SNL used to be better, but... wasn't it?

              SNL had a pretty bad period there for a few years, but by most accounts they have recovered well. I know that I am enjoying their content very much once again, while I was not for some years.

      • You've never actually met a smart person.
        As a smart person, no we don't.
        Smart people are the ones doing the inspiring too!

        Musk is case of a one-inspired leading the unimaginative engineers and peiple who need a deity in their lives.

        Since nobody's harmed, and they are happy, I'm happy for them. Even if it's kinda a waste, given that it's ruining the option to do it *actually* right. Just like Apple ruined smartphones. They are forever associated with condescending-nanny gadgets instead of pocket personal com

        • But don't assume you can judge intelligence.

          I'd recommend you apply that to:

          As a smart person, no we don't.

          Because, as you noted:

          The Dunning-Kruger effect is a bitch.

          I'd expect a smart person to have thought that post out a little better.

        • As a smart person, no we don't.

          On what are you basing this claim to intelligence?

      • by leptons ( 891340 )
        >His skill is that he's very inspirational. He gets people to work very hard because of that, and smart people are happy to do so. He's only inspirational to very few people. Most people that have memories longer than a puppy remember all his awfulness and don't really like him. He constantly says stupid shit that have had repercussions for his businesses. I wouldn't be surprised if he died penniless because of his hubris and gall.
        • I wouldn't be surprised if he died penniless because of his hubris and gall.

          Low probability, your bitterness is clouding your vision, stop it.

          However, if you insist that Musk will die penniless, I am willing to bet $x that he will not die penniless. And I will make money when he dies.

    • I'm expecting more along the lines of a Simpsons celebrity guest appearance: trying too hard to be a parody of himself and failing.

      Then again, I haven't watched either The Simpsons or SNL since, well... ever.

    • I mean the weakest guest stars are usually sports figures and politicians and the best are people with some comedy chops.

      IMO, the best are the extremely talented actors that take the role of the "straight man" or "stooge". [wikipedia.org] It takes a lot of talent to convincingly deliver lines while ridiculousness is going on around you.

  • by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @06:59PM (#61310188) Journal

    Do we have any historical data for this, as in other CEOs hosting? It seems like it could move $TSLA stock, and I'm thinking more in a down direction. Or it might do nothing if he sticks to the script. Hard to say. I'm not really inclined to throw down but... dang... this seems really peaky.

  • by maybe111 ( 4811467 ) on Saturday April 24, 2021 @07:13PM (#61310212)

    I bet DOGE will rise on that day....

    • That's not how speculative investors work. They would buy NOW on this news, intending to fleece the newbies who show up after the show airs.

      • Depends whether or not he says the word "Doge" during the show (or some inside allusion to it)

        Because, regardless of how you think speculative investors work, Must saying that word seems to cause a marked rise in the currency.
        Of course if you're trying to ride the bubble like a pro, you're not buying and selling on small time shit like this. You're picking it up whenever you're low, waiting for that crest so that you can become a millionaire at the expense of all the morons.

        But of course, if that's you
  • I have been watching SNL since the 80s as a kid...pretty steadily. I DREAD their "stunt casting" episodes and this is the worst yet. Usually the worst are when they cast an athlete or a musician....except the Trump one. That was inexplicably horrific. I've heard Steven Seagal was the worst host ever, but then Trump happened

    ...I even watched with an open mind thinking it may be funny in either a mean-spirited (I hate to admit that his mean comments have made me laugh) or a trainwreck sort of way...so Mu
    • I read the mean-spirited as meme-spirited. The latter may be more appropriate.

      It is hard to believe it will be a great show, but I might just watch a recap.

    • Except remember the Peyton Manning episode? That was awesome for some reason.
    • by shess ( 31691 )

      I have been watching SNL since the 80s as a kid...pretty steadily. I DREAD their "stunt casting" episodes and this is the worst yet. Usually the worst are when they cast an athlete or a musician....except the Trump one. That was inexplicably horrific. I've heard Steven Seagal was the worst host ever, but then Trump happened ...I even watched with an open mind thinking it may be funny in either a mean-spirited (I hate to admit that his mean comments have made me laugh) or a trainwreck sort of way...so Musk will no doubt suck, but he can never suck as much as Trump did...so dull, so egocentric, so shitty, so poorly done, so irredeemable in every way...a letdown of epic proportions. I can't imagine any scenario in which Musk won't be awkward and terrible, but he can never be as bad as Trump.

      The cases where this is a problem is where they cast someone who fully believes that they are awesome enough to be host (about time, dammit!), and that they have lots of solid additions to make to the writing which will make everything funnier. So they get there and the professionals who have spent decades honing their timing and delivery are now having to baby a huge ego through a week which is very stressful even to people who do it for a living.

      Though this negative aspect is what makes it kind of magica

  • who doesn't give two s**ts about what SNL does? Or Jimmy "blackface" Kimmel? Or Stephen "I was funny until I got woke" Colbert?

    • I've watched SNL regularly through it's ups and downs since the first episode. When every joke over the past four years was about Trump, now that he's gone it seems they can't find anything else to make fun of. Stopped bothering about who's hosting and who the musical guest might be. It's just horrible.
    • During what years did you think Colbert was funny?

    • Or Stephen "I was funny until I got woke" Colbert?

      I think that says more about you than it does about him, to be honest.
      His jokes haven't particularly changed. I think you're just letting your politics cloud your humor.

      Probably a lot more than just your humor, actually.

  • ... than Musk hitting on Cyrus. And that's him succeeding.

  • Is Elon Musk charismatic, funny, and quick-witted in person? Honest question, I really don't know.

    Because if he isn't, I can't see how this will work out well for him. Dunning-Kruger may be about to claim another victim.

    • No. No, he definitely isn't.

      But he *thinks* he is.
      And so do his fans.

      What he really does, is imitate what he thinks is like that. In a way that you can tell he just acts it, and it doesn't come natural.
      Which is a truly *painful* cringe-fest for those who aren't like him themselves.
      It's not his fault though. It's not like he chose it. He tries the best with the abilities he was born with. And we're at fault for letting him embarass himself, and not help him actually get it.

      At least he's happy...
      Just... for g

  • This will end like Fear's appearance as the musical guest with massive damage to the equipment after Musk launches a rocket in the studio on live television.
  • if he does as well as any other rich "famous cause they're famous/rich, has no comedic chops" asshole guest star does on that show, i look forward to seeing him look like a complete choad on TV.

  • I have no words.
    I'll probably have TIVo record it just out of morbid curiosity, though.
  • A functioning psychopath thinking he can ge humor right...

    At least he chose well... nobody will be able to tell of it's him failing to get it right or just SNL being painfully bad again, as always. ;)

    Oh well, if he has fun, I'm happy for him. And SNL deserve what they get. Nobody needs to watch it anyway.

  • it may be that...

    ..

    ..

    ..
    It will be..
    ..
    a long saturday night.. would.. this.. perhaps.. make sense.. to you?
  • I nominate William Shatner, if his schedule allows

  • This is a extremely strange post /.
    I know its Musk, and most people in tech think he is a god (he is a super villain/demon), but he is just going to be starring on a crappy sketch show.

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