The 10 Worst ‘SNL’ Hosts Of The New Millennium (Yes, Including Donald Trump)

Athletes are easy targets on lists like these, but hosts like Peyton Manning (3/24/07) and Jonny Mosely (3/2/02) have fared just fine during this timeframe. When Phelps hosted the Season 34 premiere, he was fresh off his record setting performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and five months away from getting busted for smoking marijuana.

Whether it was the pot or just his terrible acting skills that deserved the most blame, Phelps turned in a dazed and confused performance. NBC has wisely kept the full episode off NBC.com and SNL app, but the Michael Phelps Diet is readily accessible and is a somewhat representative sample of the entire night. That said, “Space Olympics” likely wouldn’t have happened without him, so you take the good with the bad.

In January 2006, SNL was on a bit of an upward swing. The previous five episodes from Jack Black, Scarlett Johansson, Alec Baldwin – even Dane Cook and Eva Longoria – were all very funny and well-received. Enter critical darling Peter Sarsgaard.

If he wasn’t flubbing lines (most evident in a Cat Fancy sketch which isn’t available online), or issues interacting with the TV prop during the Fairmont Suites inn sketch, Peter was having a tough night. He was also forced into two sketches based solely around his last name. One of which, Peter Sarsgaard’s SARS Guards, came with a 2015 admission to Seth Meyers that he was nearly drunk while filming it.

Prior to his first hosting gig in 2002, De Niro had long been one of the most requested SNL hosts, and he acknowledges as much in his oddly short, under two-minute monologue.

Finally at long last, we’re getting the tough and intimidating Robert DeNiro – then came the cold opening where the writers thought it best to have him read prank names for five minutes. It got laughs, but really? This was DeNiro’s entrance to SNL after 25+ years of waiting?

Throughout the night, as well as his subsequent episodes, he became more and more reliant on cue cards – so much so that it becomes almost too distracting to watch at times. At least Scrambles McSuperstuff and James T. Cat somewhat salvaged 2004’s Christmas with the Cat Lady.

When Colin Farrell hosted in ’04, his cockiness (and cigarette breath) were on full display. The classy black t-shirt and jeans look for the monologue somewhat distracted from a few flubbed lines, but after introducing Scissor Sisters (who only has one female member), he turns to Seth Meyers and jokingly says “Maybe you could get with one of those girls”. Party foul?

To completely bookend the show, he swears during the closing credits by saying “I shit you not” while recapping his week at the show.

Adrien Brody’s awkward monologue attempted to recreate his impromptu kiss with Halle Berry at the 75th Academy Awards a few months prior, but this time at the expense of some cast members and a (possibly) unsuspecting audience member. Then, without the knowledge of Lorne or the show’s producers, he dressed himself in a tank top with faux dreadlocks and improvised a 30+ second introduction for the episode’s musical guest Sean Paul – all while using a cringe-worthy Jamaican accent. Shortly after the credits rolled, we learned the stunt earned him the honor of being banned from SNL for life.

Bieber’s episode was good for one thing: Glice. (When Taran Killam revisited the sketch/character 10 months later with Bruce Willis, he proved Bieber wasn’t the crucial ingredient.) Like athletes, Bieber feels like an obvious “bad host” and I nearly gave him a pass, then Bill Hader broke down the experience recently in the updated version of James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live. “I really didn’t enjoy having Justin Bieber around,” he said, via The New York Post. “He’s the only one who lived up to the reputation. I think that’s the only time I felt that way in eight years.”

In a separate interview with Howard Stern, he added, “Justin Bieber showed up with like 20 guys. He had a guy holding a slice of pizza. A guy holding a Diet Coke … going around stage, you’re trying to fight through all these people to get dressed.”

The 2003-2004 season was easily the worst of the last 15 years with clunkers from Kelly Ripa, Megan Mullaly, Snoop Dogg, Jessica Simpson & Nick Lachey and even the Olsen Twins – yet Al Sharpton managed to sink below any of these.

Between looking bored in the Three Wise Men sketch and the rough Al Sharpton’s Casa De Sushi (not online or the SNL app – presumably due to music rights), Sharpton’s episode was a mess, and best never discussed again.

The dry, low energy dialogue delivery of January Jones worked perfectly in Mad Men and, more recently, The Last Man on Earth. On SNL, though, it only added to a puzzlingly bad performance. At times, it became difficult to decipher straight lines from her punchlines, and when combined with her inability to enunciate, it was clear she was in over her head.

This peaked when she visibly and audibly asked “which camera” she needed to be looking into during The Today Show sketch (look around the 3:10 mark).

“She’s a piece of shit” was how Tina Fey summed up Paris Hilton while talking about this episode on The Howard Stern Show. Right out of the gate, it wasn’t a good sign when a dog was given more screen time and dialogue than the host during the monologue.  This was a painful episode of SNL to get through.

Which bring us to #1, and host of this week’s SNL: Donald Trump.
For his first hosting job in April 2004, Trump’s The Apprentice was just four months old, but already a “ratings machine” – a fact he reminds us of in the monologue.

With two sketches based around The Apprentice, and 17 uses of the “You’re Fired” catchphrase (or variation of) in the show’s first two segments alone, the episode amounted to little else than 90 minutes of NBC cross promotion.

Trump didn’t give the writer’s much to work with, either. He played himself, often while looking indifferent, in most sketches – which only amusingly worked in the Armisen-led “She’s Got Class” musical sketch. Google any “Worst of SNL” lists out there, and Trump’s name won’t be far behind. Another gem from the disastrous 2003-2004 season. Looking forward to this Saturday already.

Jason Nummer still wonders what a second SNL season with Brooks Wheelan would have been like. You can follow him on Twitter at @jrnummer.