Saturday Night Live‘s roster for its 40th Anniversary celebration on February 15th just keeps growing. At this rate, there are going to be more people on stage than sitting in the audience. The line-up of former cast-members, guests and friends of the show includes all the usual suspects – Bill Murray, Bill Hader, Dan Aykroyd, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Paul Simon, Adam Sandler, Maya Rudolph, Christopher Walken, Amy Poehler, Chris Rock, and the normally publicity-shy Kristen Wiig, to name but a few – and a few surprises – okay, one surprise, but it’s huge: Eddie Murphy. Add one more stellar name to that list: Sarah Palin.
For reasons that only a man as wise as Lorne Michaels could possibly divine, the former Alaskan Governor has been invited to appear on the show. Palin famously was the host of SNL during the 2008 Presidential campaign (you may remember her “rapping”; you may be trying to forget). Will Palin and Tina Fey do an awkward sketch together? The announcement has been met with a lot of criticism online, with people vowing not to watch the show because of Palin, or at least vowing to hit the MUTE button. Although some think that getting her on is smart (17 million people watched the episode that she hosted), I disagree. In 2008 Palin was unavoidable and relevant; now she’s neither.
