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Michael Keaton is hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, presumably to promote his latest movie, while also ensuring that every Halloween party in America contains at least seven to nine dudes dressed like Beetlejuice.
Keaton’s first outing as host, back in 1982, didn’t go too well (producer Dick Ebersol enlisted Michael Palin to come be a backup host), but he was much more famous when he returned to host a decade later. I mean, he was literally Batman. And Keaton’s ‘92 monologue was all about how the former stand-up is such a big star now that he can, and will, throw out any audience member who rubs him the wrong way.
In 2015, Keaton hosted for a third time, not long after his career had been rejuvenated by the Oscar-winning Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Despite the fact that he had just starred in the most recent Oscar Best Picture, Keaton’s monologue was still all about Batman and Beetlejuice.
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As Keaton is chatting with the audience, Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan join the actor on stage and plead with him (through song) to once again play Batman and Beetlejuice for them. The millennial urge to get Keaton to reprise his classic ‘80s characters is so powerful, that they end up making their own fan films by digitally superimposing Batman and Beetlejuice costumes over behind the scenes of Keaton.
In the end, Keaton relents and performs his “I’m Batman” line, then invokes the Beetlejuice voice to declare: “It’s showtime!”
Killam and Moynihan weren’t faking their love for Keaton. “That was one of the most memorable weeks ever, just to be able to sit there and geek out with Batman himself,” Moynihan later revealed. Even his joyous meltdown to Keaton’s line readings were genuine: “If you see my reaction, it’s 100 percent real. I’m 5-years-old again.”
Watching this monologue today is a far different experience. At the time, the idea that Keaton would ever want to play Batman or Beetlejuice ever again seemed totally laughable. And the core premise of the sketch, Keaton’s reluctance to wallow in nostalgic goofery, was seemingly confirmed by his next role, which in no way required face paint or molded rubber: the acclaimed drama Spotlight.
But from the perspective of 2024, the joke basically makes no sense because Keaton has subsequently reprised both roles. Obviously he returned for this year’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and he played Batman again in 2023’s The Flash, which also found him repeating the “I’m Batman” line. But his performance in SNL was somehow way better. Like, he genuinely seemed to be having a good time with Killam and Moynihan. In The Flash, on the other hand, his soul seemingly left his body as he’s forced to utter the contractually mandated 36-year-old catchphrase.
Maybe this week’s show will shake things up with a song begging Keaton to play Birdman and that newspaper editor from Spotlight one more time.
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