If there’s anyone who can revive a Saturday Night Live joke that’s overstayed its welcome, it’s newly minted Five-Timer Jack Black.
As expected, the comic and actor was inducted into the elite SNL club by a cavalcade of elites, with cameos from Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Candice Bergen and Melissa McCarthy.
First, his opening monologue was interrupted by Hill, who surprised the Studio 8H audience with an announcement that he was working on Superbad 2. When asked by Black if it was true, Hill responded: “No, I just really like the sound of applause.”
But Hill is here for something far more important: something is amiss at the Five-Timers Club lounge; The Wolf of Wall Street alum leads him to the resting area, which has now taken on a haunted ambience, with cobwebs everywhere.
There’s “evil lurking around every corner,” Black exclaims, but no, it’s “just me,” Fey says.
“You’re the first Black in the Five-Timers Club,” she quips (donning an SNL UK First-Timers jacket) with a double entendre.
The reason for the desolate vibe is that the late-nighter has run “into the ground” Tom Hanks’ erstwhile joke, as Black’s monologue now consists the fifth Five-Timers Club sketch. SNL skewers itself further when Marcello Hernández‘s Domingo appears — a fifth time in the show’s run — before musical guest Jack White (also a Five-Timer) hits him with frying pan.
That’s when Black opts to revive the lounge with a classic rock anthem: “I’m gonna fix it by singing the world’s most rockin’ song,” he belts as the opening notes of The White Stripes’ iconic “Seven Nation Army” play.
Amid witchy background dancers and intense theatrical fog, Black rouses the audience as he sings: “And when I put this jacket on I am ready to host,” before continuing the earworm of a rock track’s recognizable “oh oh oh” chants.
