Edward Norton joked on “Saturday Night Live” that he’s spent 13 years preparing to host the show — and luckily got some advice on how to do it from Alec Baldwin and Miley Cyrus.
Norton said in his monologue Saturday that Lorne Michaels first asked him to host in 2000 — and that he’s been getting ready ever since. Then Baldwin arrived to put him through the paces. He had Norton do several impromptu celebrity impressions, including Woody (Harrelson, not Allen — though Norton did both).
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And then Cyrus appeared, just three weeks after her own “SNL” hosting gig. Her advice for Norton: Keep sticking your tongue out.
Watch the video:
The show’s highlight was a Baldwin-narrated trailer for a Halloween film from Wes Anderson: “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders.” Norton, star of Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and the upcoming “Grand Budapest Hotel,” played Owen Wilson, who co-starred with a stop-motion mouse. The trailer featured all sorts of delightful Anderson-isms favorites: polite notes between murderers and would-be-victims, Gwyneth Paltrow smoking, and, of course, still shots of the contents of desks. Watch it here.
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The episode also included an ad for “Autumn’s Eve,” pumpkin-scented feminine hygiene product:
Next, Norton played a cop who can’t convince kids never to get in a van just because someone’s offering candy:
The episode also found Norton playing a master of “punny” Halloween costumes whose comedy is lost on Steve Harvey: