Selena Gomez Jokes About Finding Love in Her Host Debut on Saturday Night Live

In the nearly 30 years she’s walked this earth, Selena Gomez has lived many lives: pre-tween friend to a large purple dinosaur; Disney sitcom witch; pop star; amateur chef. And now there’s a large segment of her fandom—let’s call them baby boomers—who have only ever known her as the adorable young neighbor to a couple of quirky older New Yorkers (played by Steve Martin and Martin Short) in the Hulu sitcom Only Murders In The Building. Just the very hippest of those will have stayed up to watch Gomez make her début last night as the host of Saturday Night Live, but it was kind of Gomez to use her opening monologue not just to shout out her SNL-veteran co-stars, but to walk through some of her many pre-Only Murders credits.

“Did you know that cutie from the building murders show used to be on Sesame Street?” these fans will ask their grandchildren at Father’s Day brunch. Close enough!

Martin did not content himself with a mere mention in Gomez’s episode: he also makes a key cameo in a filmed segment, “American Inventor.” Gomez hosts a profile of Arthur Gizmo (Martin), the innovative engineer behind the whoopee cushion. Arthur has the idea of a device that would make a funny sound when an unfortunate dupe sat on it, but what would the funniest sound possibly be? Inspiration strikes when Arthur meets Dina Beans (Aidy Bryant), a young woman who passes gas every time she sits. Watch the segment to find out all the other novelties Dina leads Arthur to create when he takes her as his muse.

Body humor also animates a sketch about A Storm Within, a new play from an acclaimed Irish playwright. Perhaps you’ve read recent real-life reports about prurient audience members sneaking creep shots of Jesse Williams in his nude scene in the Broadway play Take Me Out? Well, there’s also a penis in A Storm Within, but it doesn’t appear until Act II, so attendees may forget about it amid the disastrous production: the whole cast has Covid; the stage manager (Kenan Thompson) decided not to cancel so that he could avoid the husband he’s fighting with; none of the understudies is off-book; their grasp of their characters’ Irish accents range from “loose” to “non-existent.”

Gomez is gamely goofy in A Storm Within, as demanded by the premise—earlier in the episode, “A Peek At Pico” demonstrates that she can do comedy in accents other than her own.