Let the games begin! Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson may not have been hosts of the 70th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, but they certainly opened the show.
The two started the Monday, September 17, telecast live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles with a comedic bit called “We Solved It,” while bringing out talent such as Kristen Bell, Sterling K. Brown, Andy Samberg, RuPaul and John Legend.
They all sang — and joked about — inclusion in Hollywood before the actual hosts of the show, Colin Jost and Michael Che, took the stage.
Jost, 36, and Che, 35, — who cohost “Weekend Update” together — rattled off jokes about nominated shows, including that the cancelled Roseanne was picked up by “white nationalists.”
Twitter, however, didn’t find humor in the opening.
“So much lame race jokes and Roseanne stabs in the open anyway,” one commenter wrote. Another added: “#Emmys Thw VMA’s were a disaster and a Trumpbashing fest. I changed it after 30 min. Thought meh I’ll give the Emmys a chance, maybe it will be more classy and less political… NOPE! AlreadyTrump bashing and apparently all of Roseanne’s supporters are white nationalists??!wtf”
Another social media user chimed in: “It just started and I already lost track of all the Republican/Natzi/Roseanne jokes. Time to change the channel… yawn.”
Others, however, enjoyed the opening segment.
“Michael che and colin had a great monologue #emmys,” one Twitter user wrote. Another chimed in: “Hilarious opening by @nbcsnl @ColinJost and Michael Che ! #Emmy #Emmys2018”
It was announced in April that Jost and Che would be heading the telecast alongside their SNL boss Lorne Michaels who was the executive producer of this year’s award show.
NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt dished on the comedians in a statement to Us Weekly at the time: “NBC is thrilled to be the home of this year’s Emmy Awards and with Colin and Michael in the driver’s seat as hosts, along with surprise appearances by other cast members of Saturday Night Live, I think we are in for one of the funniest awards shows in a long time.”
