Humor/News

Peter Dinklage hosts Saturday Night Live!

Posted on by Sue the Fury

snl

Peter Dinklage hosted last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live on NBC, turning in a variety of hilarious performances on the show.  Gwen Stefani was the musical guest, and even popped into a sketch.

The opening monologue acknowledged right off the actor’s reason for being there: Game of Thrones. He was joined by a few of SNL’s cast members, including Bobby Moynihan who parodied writer George R.R. Martin, an act he has done before.

Among the several sketches last night, Dinklage played Winnie the Pooh and appeared in comedy bits featuring a glory hole restaurant and a “sneak peek” at Game of Thrones season 6 with Kate McKinnon as Emilia Clarke and Taran Killam as…not the most accurate Iain Glen I’ve ever seen, but it was fun.

Dinklage got his SPACE PANTS! on with a little help from a guest.

The actor played himself (well, sorta) along with SNL player Leslie Jones in “Naked & Afraid: Celebrity Edition” where things got wild and Jones kept calling Dinklage “Tyrion.”

The complete episode is currently available on Hulu:

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Sue the Fury
Susan Miller, Editor in Chief of WatchersOnTheWall.com

46 Comments

  4. “Space Pants” was hilarious, and totally meme-worthy. Hope some of our Photoshop and video-editing gurus will take a whack at it.

    The SNL makeup artists seemed to be having a lot of fun giving Peter various versions of Frankenstein forehead.

  5. SNL is usually 60-75% crap, you just have to look for the good stuff. Peter is great in comedic stuff though, even when the writing is eh.

  6. Peter did try to sell every single bit he was in, even the painful Winnie the Pooh thing.

    When they were doing to really terrible bit with the re-enactment of the Danish thugs, I absolutely expected a cameo from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau doing a really terrible Danish accent. That might have made that bit funny.

  7. I tried to enjoy the episode. Except for the silly teasers, the opening Trump bashing, Space pants, Naked and Afraid, and Weekend Update, the episode was meh. They needed a game show and cameos to kick it up a notch.

  10. Sue the Fury:
    SNL is usually 60-75% crap, you just have to look for the good stuff. Peter is great in comedic stuff though, even when the writing is eh.

    That’s a generous percentage! 😉

  13. I didn’t tune in and am not even wasting time on the ‘highlights’ and offer my condolences to those that did.

  14. OT: I am back from 8 days off the grid, did we get an official video of that mysterious teaser that was released on tv?

  15. HotPinkLipstick:
    Peter did try to sell every single bit he was in, even the painful Winnie the Pooh thing.

    When they were doing to really terrible bit with the re-enactment of the Danish thugs, I absolutely expected a cameo from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau doing a really terrible Danish accent. That might have made that bit funny.

    ME TOO! Dressed as another thug! 🙂

    It seems like they need to get some better comedy writers on that show. I did chuckle at the guy in the fishtank photobombing every shot in that very lame “Fantasy Island” sketch.

  18. Ashara D,

    I can see Nikolaj being on of the thugs, speaking in his regular voice and the “victims” saying, “I don’t know why they hired that guy. He wasn’t even remotely Danish.”

    Then more of the re-enactment and Peter saying, “This actor kept insisting he was Danish, but he clearly wasn’t, we eventually had to have him removed from the set.” And Nikolaj being dragged away yelling, “But I am actually from Denmark,” and then speaking in perfect Danish.

    That would have been funny. Missed opportunity.

  19. Maybe it’s just me, but Peter looks to be completely over GoT right now. Like, Leonard Nimoy in I Am Not Spock-mode kind of over. I doubt he’s the only actor in the cast who feels that way too.

  20. In avclub.com review of last night, they commented that Peter willed every skit with loony brilliance except the two segments (the monologue and the behind the scene skit) where the cursory Game of Thrones reference were made. It seemed he rather “less invested” in them and chose to defer to SNL cast members to carry the segment

  21. SNL isn’t as funny as it used to be. Some skits are pretty bad but I’ll watch this one because of Peter Dinklage.

  24. ace:
    In avclub.com review of last night, they commented that Peter willed every skit with loony brilliance except the two segments (the monologue and the behind the scene skit) where the cursory Game of Thrones reference were made.It seemed he rather “less invested” in them and chose to defer to SNL cast members to carry the segment

    Hmmmm…so he had no interest in GoT?

  26. We are three weeks before the premiere. This cast has gone through an absolute fuckton of interviews where they are unable to answer any questions. Of course they are tired of it. Of course they just want the season to start. Of course they want to give ice pick lobotomies to every interviewer who asks them about Jon Snow.

    As tired as we are of hearing their answers, they are even more exhausted by giving them.

    We are all experiencing promotion-fatigue. The start of S6 is going to be a relief for everyone.

    Until, of course, the next cliffhanger.

  28. Sue the Fury: SNL is usually 60-75% crap, you just have to look for the good stuff. Peter is great in comedic stuff though, even when the writing is eh.

    “Do you remember when SNL was good? Neither do I!” has been a joke since (I think) the 1980’s. But you have the right of it: when it’s “on”, then it’s particular moments that make the rest of the tedium worthwhile.

  29. RBloodworth: Maybe it’s just me, but Peter looks to be completely over GoT right now. Like, Leonard Nimoy in I Am Not Spock-mode kind of over. I doubt he’s the only actor in the cast who feels that way too.

    Well, remember: Dinklage was…. acting!!! (Sorry, that was an attempt at an SNL character from a quarter of a century ago.)

    Nimoy’s “I am not Spock” phase was quite different: like a lot of actors who played such roles, he got typecast. However, Dinklage has some advantages here. In particular, Tyrion is a very dynamic character who evolves a lot over the course of the series. So, if Series 1 Tyrion does not call to mind what casters want for a role, then there still is a chance that Series 3 or Series 5 Tyrion will. More importantly, casters might think: “Gee, Dinklage can do a lot of things” just from his Game of Throne performances.

    Funny-but-true Nimoy story! As a rich individual who was genuinely interested in patronizing the sciences, but who also had only a layman’s knowledge about science, Nimoy often visited research institutes. He was overwhelmed by the detail of the explanations that the scientists would give him, but he noticed once that the tour-guide kept laughing. Why? The tour-guide told him that usually the scientists treated the rich donors like particularly stupid children, and gave basically “baby talk” summaries of their research. However, they were treating Nimoy like he was an esteemed colleague!

    I.e., the Nerds thought that Spock was in the room…..

    It’s hard to imagine something similar happening to “Tyrion”!

  34. In the picture above, all I keep thinking is I hope the cockatoo doesn’t poop while standing on Peter’s head. 🙂

    Saw the first 20 minutes – wasn’t funny to me at all, unfortunately. 🙁

  35. Blanche Holstein: Would’ve paid to see Peter, Belushi and that crew.

    Belushi, Aykroyd, Murray, et al. had some great moments, but, man, they had no idea when to end a sketch!

    Still, those moments were great.

  37. Wimsey,

    Maybe Bill Murray will cameo in GoT. He always seems to show up in the oddest places.

    Oh…and loved the Nimoy story! 🙂

  38. Wimsey: “Do you remember when SNL was good?Neither do I!” has been a joke since (I think) the 1980’s.But you have the right of it: when it’s “on”, then it’s particular moments that make the rest of the tedium worthwhile.

    I kind of lost interest after the original cast left. But I guess even in retrospect, what stick in the memory are the truly classic funny moments, and we tend to filter out all the stuff that missed the mark. If we could go back and rewatch whole shows from SNL’s Golden Age, we’d probably still be complaining about this bit or that bit that fizzled.

  41. Deesensfan,

    Welcome, girl! Between you and me you didn’t miss any interesting spoilers – I know that you are Unsullied, but I mean there haven’t been any good spoilers to hide from them. So, it’s good you had fun and took a break.

  42. RBloodworth,

    It wouldn’t surprise me if he was over it. He’s admitted many times he doesn’t watch it. Although it was a joke in the opening monologue that he doesn’t read the rest of the scripts other than his own parts, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a layer of truth in that as well. Kit Harington seems totally over it too. I’m sure there are others as well who are better at hiding it. Is it unusual though? I can recall actors/actresses who are in other popular franchises who come to dislike talking about it so much. Seems like it’s a natural progression for some in the acting field to grow tired of mega success in one thing and have a strong desire to just move on.

    It’s always an awkward topic, because while we think it’s cool that some of these people are just as much fans as we are (Liam Cunningham, Alfie Allen) that makes it easy to forget that others (Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Stephen Dillane) probably just want it to end.

  43. HotPinkLipstick:
    We are three weeks before the premiere. This cast has gone through an absolute fuckton of interviews where they are unable to answer any questions. Of course they are tired of it. Of course they just want the season to start. Of course they want to give ice pick lobotomies to every interviewer who asks them about Jon Snow.

    As tired as we are of hearing their answers, they are even more exhausted by giving them.

    We are all experiencing promotion-fatigue. The start of S6 is going to be a relief for everyone.

    Until, of course, the next cliffhanger.

    *bakes a thank you rum cake*

  45. RBloodworth:
    Maybe it’s just me, but Peter looks to be completely overGoT right now.Like, Leonard Nimoy in I Am Not Spock-mode kind of over.I doubt he’s the only actor in the cast who feels that way too.

    Be gone, before someone drops a house on you too!

    This is such horseshit. He looked totally like The Dink through the whole show and several times looks like he was actually having some fun with it all. Last thing we need now is someone saying yet another actor/director/writer is “so over” GoT’s. It is the best paying, longest lasting, fan building thing most of these people will ever do.

    I didn’t think the show was bad, just not great – Peter was great in all and he showed what a great range of characters he can play. Willing to camp it up as well. He was a good sport. One needs that on SNL.

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