Saturday Night Live Recap: Jon Hamm Can Do No Wrong
Even though Jon Hamm was cruelly forced to shave before being allowed to walk into NBC's Rockefeller Center last week, that didn't change how much we'd been looking forward to his second SNL hosting stint ever since, well, the moment that he left the stage the first time around. After all, back in October of 2008, he quickly proved that he had the same sort of comedic range and charismatic stage presence that some of the all-time best SNL guest hosts possess (think Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks). However, considering that the writing staff turned out two excellent Mad Men skits last time around and presumably wouldn't go there again, would this appearance live up to the extremely high standards of his first, or end up as lame as Betty Draper's episode earlier this year?
Enter Sergio!
Clearly inspired by that shirtless, ponytailed, greasy sax-playing freak from the Lost Boys, this skit was notable not necessarily for the laughs that it delivered or the cleverness of the concept (both of which were only mild in execution), but rather for the way it treated Jon Hamm like a sex object. Usually, hosts who willingly subject themselves to this sort of sexual objectification are female, so it was refreshing to see the tables turned. And if it weren't enough for a topless Hamm to gyrate and thrust his sax around as if it were a brass extension of his wang, we got to see Jon Hamm dress up in "sexy" costume gear and talk dirty to the other castmates for the entirety of the next sketch:
We're not quite sure that Hamm exactly nailed Brown's Masshole accent, but at the same time, we're not willing to say that he's anywhere close to Julianne Moore territory.
The rest of Hamm's second guest-hosting stint alternated from "just average" to "pretty good," with one exception. In a weird nod to last year's Jon Hamm's John Ham sketch, Hamm decided to start up a brand-new restaurant with musical guest Michael Bublé called, hilariously enough, Ham & Bublé (that's pronounced "bubbly," kids). If you've always been dreaming of a place that only served the finest pork products marinated in champers, then Ham & Bublé is the place for you! Better hurry, though, as we're not sure how much longer Hamm can convince the French Canadian crooner to hang around his restaurant.
Next week: Ashton Kutcher and Them Crooked Vultures!