‘SNL’ Takes the GOP to Coachella, Seth Rogen Hosts
Could Coachella be an ideal recruiting ground for new GOP members? In its cold open this weekend, Saturday Night Live stuck Paul Ryan (Taran Killam) and Jeb Bush (Beck Bennett) onstage before the Outkast reunion to present the festival crowd with an introduction to “the new face of the Republican party.” Haplessly wielding young-folk phrases like “ratchet,” “turnt up” and “basic bitches,” the pair promise to “get you guys off this lawn and back to work” while offering a few policy changes they hope will appeal to the Coachella demographic: “A lot of you are probably in favor of gay marriage, right? Well you’re in luck, because the new GOP is not gonna talk about it as much.”
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Seth Rogen made his third appearance as host of SNL, and he brought on some famous friends to kick off the episode. The set-up for the monologue was the diary Rogen kept to remember the good times as he prepped the episode with the SNL cast and writers. There were lots of pot jokes, of course, and a reference to the curious mess Rogen’s good buddy got himself into recently: “I decided to prank James Franco. I posed as a girl on Instagram, told him I was way young. He seemed unphased.”
Despite Rogen’s insistence that he didn’t want help from any of his friends, Zooey Deschanel took the stage, followed closely by James Franco and Taylor Swift (friend of musical guest Ed Sheeran). “You’re getting really upset, and whenever a man shows emotion, I appear,” Swift explained.
Franco returned for a touching digital short bromance called “Monster Pals,” with Rogen in a smaller role playing a bully harassing two sensitive creatures drinking in a bar.
This month being April, and next week being April 20th, there were plenty more jokes about getting high. In one sketch, Seth Rogen played a D.A.R.E. officer flailing in the always-hopeless task of educating Shallon.
And then a digital short called “420” hit the theme more directly while introducing a whole bounty of new holiday traditions.
Saturday Night Live returns on May 3rd with host Andrew Garfield and musical guest Coldplay.