As of last Saturday, Justin Timberlake has hosted SNL five times. To commemorate, he brought back a skit dating back to 1990, as well as a few former hosts dating back to the show’s inception.
The Five-Timers Club, the most exclusive spot in New York in Timberlake’s estimation, was first introduced by Tom Hanks during his fifth time hosting in 1990. The club included such greats as Steve Martin, Paul Simon and Elliot Gould at the time.
The club has since enlisted a good number of celebrities, including Drew Barrymore, John Goodman, Christopher Walken and the reigning champion of repeat hosts, Alec Baldwin.
Timberlake used the club as an excuse to open the show with the first in a string of reunions throughout the episode. Former cast members Dan Akroyd and Martin Short appeared as wait and bartending staff, and Steve Martin, Candace Bergen, Alec Baldwin, Paul Simon and Chevy Chase were living the high life of smoking jackets and superior airs.
The jokes were pretty typical, but keeping to each actor’s (or actress’s) style in their banter made the thing feel like a reunion of personalities, rather than a simple corralling of high-profile acts.
The reunion theme popped up again and again, once notably in a dating game scenario in which both infamous couplings of Andy Samburg/JT and Akroyd/Martin made an appearance.
The first duo freestyled answers to the bachelorette in the style of 90s R&B, à la comedy troupe The Lonely Island’s “Dick in a Box.” Akroyd and Martin shimmied their way through the questioning as the goofy Czechoslovakian Festrunk Brothers, an act originally from the SNL archives in 1977.
Both of the pairs were funny, but I’m just partial to the older gimmick. JT can’t really compare to the genius that is Steve Martin after all these years, but that’s another remix I’m going to have to touch on.
I have been waiting so long for Justin Timberlake to start making music again that it was all I could do not to ugly cry when he got on stage with the Tennessee Kids and crooned away. And this is even before Jay-Z showed up.
I would’ve given one of my dancing shoes and all of my childhood dreams of marrying JT up for a chance to watch that SNL episode from the audience.
It’s okay, though. I’ll be first in line for tickets when they finally get a call back from Bill Murray, another five-timer.
