Jason Bateman
[Starts with SNL monologue intro] [Cut to SNL stage] [Band is playing music]Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Bateman.
[Jason Bateman walks in and to the stage] [cheers and applause]Jason Bateman: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It is such a joy to be here with all of you tonight. Guys, we’re almost there. The year is almost over. Who here has had it with 2020? Boy! But at least we’ve got the vaccine now, right? Who else here had the vaccine already? Just me? I thought there would be a lot of hands up. Listen, it is very, very great to be back here hosting SNL or the second time. The first time was 15 years ago, so you know I made a hell of an impression. Honestly, I was just too busy. I had not one free Saturday for 15 years but I finally freed up. I am very glad to be back here even though something kin of weird happened last time I hosted. I was in a sketch called “Monkeys throwing poop at celebrities” which naturally it had a monkey in it. Now, if the show did that sketch today, they would use a puppet or a kid in a fuzzy suit for safety. Back then, they used a real male adult chimpanzee. This was 2005. Things were loose. Things were so loose that at the end of the show at goodnights, the monkey was allowed to take a bow with us up here. We’re all hugging. We’re saying goodnight. The credits are rolling and then the monkey tried to kill me. Truly.
I bent down to say “Good job” to the monkey being nice. I’m a nice fellow. But not the chimp. The chimp unhinges his jaw. He flashes the teeth and he tries to bite my entire nose off. This is a true story. Apparently, this is a thing with chimps I guess. They hate that humans have faces and they want to remove them. I don’t know. Maybe you got a good look at this nose and thought I wasn’t going to miss half of it. I don’t know. This is not one of those fake ironic monologues story. This really happened right here. We’re going to prove it to you. We’re going to show you a clip. I think we’ve got the clip.
[Cut to the clip of the monologue from 15 years back where Jason Bateman bent down to the monkey.]Right here. Here it comes. Right? See? So there it is. See? We’ll slow that down. Slow motion. Here it is. I know it doesn’t look like much. Right? It doesn’t look like much. But I had the horror angle. Right? This camera saw the terror. It was terrifying. However, I am smiling. I am smiling, but inside I’m thinking, “A monkey just attacked me and nobody cares.” [in the video, the cast members are just chatting with each other.] [Cut back to Jason Bateman]
They just keep hugging. Anyway, I survive and after the show I was told by the animal handlers that Mikey the monkey wanted to apologize. Truly. My first thought was that this is a trap, he wants more, he’s still snacky. But I decided that everyone deserves a second chance. So, I went down to his dressing room. I open up the door and he’s standing there. He’s looking very ashamed of himself. Honest to god, he shuffles over to me, puts his hand up on my shoulder as if to say “I’m sorry.” It was a very, very beautiful moment. It was a connection between a man and nature that I will never, ever forget. The monkey was destroyed later that night. It was my choice. Lessons have to be learned. But I would like to think that if he was here with us tonight to see me host 15 years later, he would probably rip my nuts off.
But we’ve got a great show for you tonight. Morgan Wallen is here. The chimp is still alive. Stick around, we’re going to be right back
