For his fourth time hosting “Saturday Night Live” (the last time was in 2015), Michael Keaton proved a founding voice in several sketches. That’s not surprising, since he was once one of the most popular comedy film actors in the world. You could say that he and SNL alumnus Eddie Murphy dominated the film comedies of the 1980s.

But that comedic durability – Keaton doesn’t break character and he still has great timing and line deliveries – felt like it was put on the back burner in an episode that didn’t seem to make the most of Keaton’s talents. After a monologue in which a few cast members were dressed as one of his iconic characters, Beetlejuice, Keaton played a cookie maker with a zombie eye cookie that resembles a breast, a father whose son unwisely performs the song “Hey, Soul Sister.” about his proposed interracial marriage, and a canceled Lyft driver swept up in a live Uber car game show.

It’s not that the sketches weren’t funny. It’s most of the pieces, plus a late-in-the-show one restaurant sketch about lost lovedidn’t really allow Keaton to create memorable new characters. In fact, they seemed to use his dramatic acting equipment more, like when he played a sad skydiving instructor in the first new Please Don’t Destroy video sketch of the season.

The exception to the drama-or-sidekick problem was a sketch in which Keaton played the stunt-movement coordinator for a ‘Halloween’ movie in which he creates Michael Myers move like a modern dancer instead of a serial killer. But the skit was a joke that went on too long, despite Keaton’s performance.

Musical guest Billie Eilish performed “Birds of a feather“And”Wild flower” with her band, including her also famous brother, Finneas.

For the fourth week in a row, guest stars Maya Rudolph and Dana Carvey returned to reprise their roles multiple times as Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden. But this time, Alec Baldwin, who played former President Trump on ‘SNL,’ was here to play Fox News’ Bret Baier in a takedown of his interview with Harris this week. Baldwin while Baier frequently interrupted Harris and suggested he wouldn’t let her finish until he went to bed. Kamala took interview breaks to use a phone camera and make quick TikTok spots (“See how I don’t let men interrupt my answers? Very understated, very deliberate.”). Harris refuted the claim that she can’t stand immigration cartels, saying, “If I was on Breaking Bad, it would have ended in three episodes,” and complained that clips of Trump (James Austin Johnson) and Biden were played from the film. context. And a lot of hay was made from it Trump plays music for forty minutes in a town hall — Harris points out that it seemed to be full of gay songs like “YMCA” and “It’s Raining Men.” “Isn’t he listening to the lyrics?” she asked.

Keaton celebrated the 50th season of “SNL” by mentioning that when the show started, he was a production assistant on “Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.” What did they have in common? “Lots of dolls, tons of cocaine,” he joked. When he brought up the phenomenon of grown men wearing Beetlejuice costumes for Halloween, he was joined by Mike Day and Andy Samberg (“The writers couldn’t jam Doug Emhoff in the opening.”), each in full “Juice costumes and hamming it’. with their impression. Sarah Sherman, who usually dresses in vibrant colors, wore a striped black-and-white suit for the monologue, but said it was not a costume. After much insistence, Keaton finally voiced Beetlejuice, but only to say, “We’re having a great show!”

Best sketch of the night: This Shop TV cookie is just the brisket

The Shop TV sketches are reliably funny because the premise is solid: a craftsman goes to sell a product along with presenters Rhett and Lindy, played by Day and Heidi Gardner, but the product is always shaped like genitals or is somehow Way unsuitable for TV. Last time, Adam Driver had a naughty Santa chocolate; this time it’s Keaton as a baker who has created a Halloween zombie eyeball cookie that looks exactly like a woman’s breast, complete with a red velvet nipple center. As Day and Gardner struggle to keep the show on track, viewers who call in ask questions like, “Is the cookie available in different ethnicities?”

Also good: TikTok’s algorithm, but as an ‘SNL’ sketch

“SNL” has done this before, back in 2021but it also works just as well: a random assortment of TikTok moments on someone’s smartphone. There are a lot of jokes in a short time, some of them very topical. Harris, Rudolph and Eilish all appear as people subjected to bad singing from Bowen Yang as influencer Harry Daniels. Carvey returns as Biden on a balance board, while Ego Nwodim plays a woman with a ton of complaints about her local Chili’s restaurant. Bethenny Frankel, op tradwomana human slow dancing with his catand “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper appear in the mock TikTok clips. Unfortunately, the person watching the videos misses the birth of his son, as we learn from a text message.

‘Weekend Update’ Winner: Emil Wakim Says Christian Arabs Are Practically French

Sarah Sherman came back to talk about it what is missing in the Victoria’s Secret fashion showincluding infected belly rings and diapers, but Emil Wakim won the week by discussing what it’s like to be both Arab and Christian. Wakim, one of the season’s new leads, got a chance to introduce himself to the “SNL” audience by talking about how his Iranian immigrant father was such a success that he is now a Republican. Wakim scored with jokes about how the tension in every room drops when he tells people he is a Christian Arab (also in Studio 8H). Wakim said his father always told him that his family is more European than Middle Eastern in religious beliefs, and that they are almost French. (The French, Wakim suggested, would definitely disagree.) Or, Wakim added, Christian Arabs are just: “Hairy, sweaty, passionate guys… a Greek you’re a little afraid of.”