-My first guest tonight is an Emmy-winning comedian
who you know from "Saturday Night Live,"
which is all new this week with host Dave Chappelle
and musical guest -- [ Cheering ]
musical guest Foo Fighters.
[ Cheers and applause ] Come on!
You can also see him in the movie "Hubie Halloween,"
which is so funny, man. He's great.
It's available now on Netflix.
Everyone, please welcome Kenan Thompson.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ We love Kenan Thompson ♪
♪♪
♪ Saturday Night, SNL ♪
♪♪
♪ We love Kenan Thompson ♪
♪ He got soul hear to tell ♪
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
-We don't play entrance music anymore.
That is all new. What was that?
♪ Kenan Thompson ♪
-Made it up. -Just made up the song.
-[ Vocalizing ]
-♪ Kenan Thompson ♪
-[ Both vocalizing ]
-♪ Kenan Thompson ♪
-Musicians, man. -I know.
-You guys are the best, man.
Shout out to Philly, by the way.
You know what I'm talking about? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-You know, Kenan does the warm-up before the audience --
before the show starts on "Saturday Night Live."
And it's right up to the last second.
Usually do standup or you do a song with the band.
Or I did -- I used to do Rolling Stones
when I was on the show. -Which song?
-I did "Midnight Rambler." -Which goes?
-No, no, no, no, I can't. That's too much money.
-Is that really? -We can't afford Rolling Stones.
-Can't even just replay the -- -No.
We can do like a different version of the song.
-That's amazing. But, yeah, no, we warm up
the crowd before the show.
And Michael Che does some good stand-up
and he introduces me and I force karaoke upon --
upon the crowd.
But it's a good time.
You know, it's good to get the energy up.
And I get my little jitters out from seeing people staring at me
and stuff like that.
-Get your nerves out. I remember I did --
I worked -- I did such --
I really went for this song so hard.
And I was pretending I was Mick Jagger --
-You were playing. -And Keith Richards.
I was playing the guitar and singing,
then I laid on the ground. I flipped --
You know, this is pro-COVID. I was laying on people.
-This is before the show even starts?
-Before the show even started. And then I was in a sketch,
the cold open sketch. -Yeah, yeah.
-And so they go, "We're starting in, you know,
five seconds." You know? And you go --
-Voice blown. -Yup.
-My voice is blown every week. -Sweaty.
-Yeah. -Dude, I was in --
Tina was like, "What is wrong with you?"
I go -- [ Panting ]
-"And live from New York --" [ Laughter ]
-"Hold on a second. Rachel, you say it.
You say it. I can't talk." -It's intense.
But, I mean -- but, you know, it's a specific kind of love
you have for entertaining, I think, you know?
-Yeah. -And that comes through
when you're, I guess, chosen to be in that role
of even warming up the audience before we do an awesome show.
-Yeah. 'Cause it's like -- "Yeah, we want this show
to be -- we're a team." -Yeah, man.
-We want everyone to score. -I want everybody to experience
a good time, you know? -Yeah.
-I wish it could be always -- -And this week --
-Shout out to those talented people that we just saw.
That was -- that was incredible.
-Yeah. That was amazing, right?
[ Applause ] -Incredible.
-Isn't that cool? -All three of them
were very -- I thought it was funny how she stubbed her toe
a little less after that first one.
[ Laughter ]
-She got a little bit too real. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like, "Ooh, that was a really --"
Yeah, method actor. -Yeah. That was incredible.
And all the way from Italy. Come on.
The global unite.
-You have Dave Chappelle hosting this Saturday.
-Whew! -First of all, it's the sixth--
Yeah, I mean, come on. [ Applause ]
But a six-show run is pretty amazing,
and to end it with Dave Chappelle who's just,
I mean, brilliant. -Come on. I mean, who better?
You know what I'm saying?
Especially since it's a resurgence
of the last four year when he made his appearance.
You know what I mean? -Was that four years?
-Yeah. -Geez.
-And it was, you know, just an electric week then.
So I know the show Saturday is going to be powerful.
It's going to be very, very powerful.
So -- I'm going to be honest. He complimented us yesterday.
He made an insane speech, you know, before the table read.
Did the same thing years ago.
But I mean, the guy is just such a prolific speaker.
You know what I'm saying?
And he speaks from the heart, and a brilliant mind.
And it's such a pleasure to be around.
I mean, y'all know. -Yeah.
Yeah, you went to his thing in -- in Ohio, right?
-That's right.
-That's -- he's just -- I -- he's like a -- beyond --
I don't want to say wordsmith, it's beyond that.
He's a poet. He's like -- it's so many things.
But funny.
Dude, I remember back in the day when we --
I used to do stand-up and see him.
This is when -- does he still smoke on stage?
-Constantly. -Yeah.
-He smoked more than I've ever seen,
and he was like -- and just lighting up the whole thing.
And this was like -- I don't know what --
I guess if they banned cigarettes,
that have a weird scene. -Yeah.
He almost does it on purpose, I feel like now.
-Exactly, yeah.
Keith Richards was here, and he smoked and the alarms went off.
-Yeah.
-And I went into his dressing room.
-"Isn't this this cool?" -Yeah. No, I said to him,
I go, "Keith, you know you can't smoke."
He goes, "I know, it's bad for your health, right?"
[ Laughter ]
He knows what's up. It's Keith Richards, man.
-He's fine. He'll be fine. -Can you -- look at this.
That's you -- -Look at that.
-Tracy Morgan, Eddie Murphy, Chris rock, Dave Chappelle.
What was this feeling like?
-First of all, it was the Christmas show,
so Merry Christmas to me.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah. -Those guys --
those are four legends I'm standing next to.
You know what I'm saying? You know, going down the line,
Tracy is my brother, you know.
He was the first person to embrace me,
because I came in right when he left.
You know what I'm saying? -That's right.
-He took me to T.G.I. Friday's for lunch.
Like, "Let's go to Friday's." [ Laughter ]
-Dude, that sounds real. -It was very real.
-The one right down the street?
-Yeah, in his Cadillac Escalade pickup truck.
[ Laughter ]
He pulled it out of the garage on 48th Street.
-I love him. -We drove around --
-I love him. -50th to --
-You could walk -- -Back to 48th and Fifth.
-You could walk to it. [ Laughter ]
-Just because he wanted us to see his ride
and he wanted... -Yeah.
-...to flex on two and a half blocks.
I always felt him for that.
-That's actually legendary. -Stepping up.
-You could throw a rock and hit T.G.I. Friday's
from our building. -Exactly.
Next to him, you have the legendary Dave Chappelle, man,
who yesterday told me that I was good at my job,
and I almost cried, you know what I'm saying?
Like... -Seriously?
-The dude is -- I mean, as far as the pinnacle of people
I look up to in the voice of my generation, it's that guy.
You know? And next to him,
the legendary Eddie Murphy, man,
the first black movie superstar, you know?
And just the first person that meant everything
to every single person in my family.
You know what I'm saying? Everything he did, we all,
like, laughed really hard and embraced.
You know what I'm saying? -Of course.
-So next to him, you have Chris Rock,
who is brilliant in his own lane.
He carved a lane so strong
that I don't think anybody can say he's not
probably the greatest --
probably stand-up specials that HBO ever had.
You know what I'm saying? -Ever.
-That whole run that he did is so solid and still --
-Changed the game. -Brilliant in his mind.
He's killing it on "Fargo" right now.
You know what I'm saying? -Yeah, he is, by the way.
-So I could run down the credits of those dudes all day long.
And shout-out to Michael Che
for even writing me in that moment, man.
Like, I'm just -- like, I'm floored when I see it.
-And how about the person holding this picture?
[ Laughter ] -And the -- and --
-That's -- -If you zoom in
on the pink knuckles around --
[ Laughter ]
They belong to --
-Zoom in on the pink knuckles.
-They belong to my brother James Fallon, who...
[ Laughter ]
...is probably one of the funniest people
I've ever been around in my entire life.
-Thank you. That's all I wanted, yeah.
-Yeah, absolutely, hands down. -Thank you, I appreciate that.