Lorne Michaels Thought Jack Black Might Die Hosting ‘SNL'

I would love to have Jack Black’s energy when I hit 55. Hell, I’d take it now. While I’m not so old that I can’t still hang, I almost had to call out of a show last week because I hurt my back. Meanwhile, Jack Black is twenty years my senior and still bippin’ and boppin’ and singin’ and dancin’ and twerkin’ and such. That’s all just in his backyard! Black brings that same energy to any project to which he lends his talents, and he has for decades. Nothing is going to slow him down. Not time, a broken ankle, or Lorne Michaels telling him that Desi Arnaz almost died doing the same thing.

Black returned to host Saturday Night Live for the first time in twenty years last month. His stint was full of the vim and vigor you would expect from Black. He fits perfectly in the show, and it’s kind of wild to think he spent two decades away. So, he wasted no time getting the crowd amped up. His opening monologue had him jumping and singing, and dancing all over the stage and through the crowd! He even did a tiger roll to start the song. It was a lot, and Lorne Michaels discouraged him from going so hard.

Black recently appeared on David Spade and Dana Carvey’s Fly on the Wall podcast and discussed his time hosting. There, he revealed that Michaels was reminded of a former host when watching Black rehearse: Desi Arnaz. “Lorne said the funniest thing,” Black noted. “I don’t think he was trying to be funny, but after the rehearsal, he saw me do the tiger roll and he saw me doing that rockin’ number and he saw me sweating and wheezing, and he said, ‘I just want to tell you a story…’” Black does an admittedly poor Lorne impression, which makes the story even funnier.

“In the ’70s, this is the beginning, we had Desi Arnaz on the show,” Michaels explained to Black. “And he was getting up there, he was in his 70s. And I wanted him on, because I just thought, yes, he’s older, but he’s an icon.” Lorne was nervous because the I Love Lucy star wanted to perform his famous Babalú number, but he was older, which is a legitimate concern, as Arnaz was struggling. Still, they let him go on to do the number, with Gilda Radner introducing him while dressed as Lucille Ball. It was all going fine until Michaels noticed something strange about Arnaz.

“Desi’s lips (had) started to turn blue,” Black told the hosts, and Michaels was afraid he was “about to die.” So, the producer “just pulled the plug on it, and said ‘Go to commercial.’” Arnaz ended up being okay, but the night stuck with Lorne enough that he felt the need to recount it to Black almost 50 years later. Black tried to figure out what Michaels was getting at. “I was like, ‘Wait a second, are you telling me this story because you’re worried I’m going to die?’” But he says the entertainment mogul “just warning me not to go too hard.”

Black did go hard, and the night was better for it. But I do wonder how many memories like that just rattle around in Michaels’ brain like some old ghosts. Hell, he’s been in the same building for 50 years, all those memories probably bleed together. He’s like Doctor Manhattan, wandering the halls and saying, “I have to go talk to Paul about being the musical guest,” but you never know which one he means.