Adam Levine is one of the rare musicians who have gotten to host “Saturday Night Live.” He is also the rare one who has not also been the musical guest at the same time.
Still, with all of his experience on “The Voice,” and some acting on “American Horror Story,” television is not anything new to him and with the help of some extra performers — including Andy Samberg in the opening monologue and in a full Lonely Island music video digital short reordering “YOLO” into a more cautionary acronym for “you oughta look out.”
It was a pretty star studded, though random opening monologue, though, with Samberg, Cameron Diaz and Jerry Seinfeld turning round in “Voice” judge chairs, giving advice on comedy and urging him to choose them as mentors.
Amusing, but like a lot of the episode, you wish it delivered just a bit more — like “The Carrie Diaries” inspired prequel for another HBO hit, “The Sopranos Diaries,” which was pretty much the cast set in a 1980s high school.
The cold open had Jay Pharoh’s Barack Obama meeting Kenan Thompson’s Martin Luther King on Inauguration Day. Like the rest of America, MLK mostly wanted to talk about Beyonce’s appearance and Michelle’s bangs. And he said African-Americans still have a ways to go: There are no black magicians yet.
It was a big show for Thompson, even without a “What’s Up with That” sketch (thankfully), as he returned for a good Ray Lewis impersonation during “Weekend Update,” which also featured Nasim Pedrad’s flawless Adriana Huffington impersonation. It was a good night for her as well, appearing in a couple of sketches in addition to that.
A “Gay Network” show called “Circle Time” was an opportunity to make Levine look effeminate, but by the time of a pointless routine involving Bill Hader’s screeching fireman, you started to wonder of “SNL” was back to having gayness be the point of the humor.
How did “SNL” really feel about Levine? Well they put him in a barroom confrontation with other equal pop stars (all impersonated): the guy from Train, Jason Mraz, John Meyer, Hootie, which like most sketches late in the show didn’t bother to have an ending. A Bobby Moynihan as an ungainly groupie was a particularly bereft sketch.
But there was a Jason Sudeikis Biden impersonation late in the show to promote his own odd celebration day in his home state of Delaware that featured a duet with a Neil Diamond impersonator played by Levine — at last it was a good slot for his skills