Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live saw musician and freshman The Voice judge Nick Jonas served as host and musical guest, in addition to playing himself in the second installment of December’s popular “The Dionne Warwick Talk Show” sketch. The sketch starred Ego Nwodim (Saturday Night Live, Brockmire), promoted to repertory player this season, as the 80-year-old musician and “Queen of Twitter”, Dionne Warwick, via Billboard. While Warwick praised Saturday Night Live’s first version of the sketch in December, she upped-the-ante this Sunday by announcing plans for her talk show Dionne Speaks on YouTube.
While Warwick officially announced Dionne Speaks earlier in the week, the content of “The Dionne Warwick Talk Show” prompted her to post a YouTube video in which she revealed plans to invite Wendy Williams on as her first guest. As Warwick skyrocketed to Twitter fame in late 2020, television host Williams began to take jabs at the singer on The Wendy William’s Show, via Billboard. Saturday Night Live has comedically leaned into the notion of a Warwick-Williams rivalry, making it the central focus of their sketches, with Nwodim’s Warwick enlisting her guests to help pull a fast one on Williams.
Melissa Villasenor (Saturday Night Live, Hubie Halloween), playing musician Dua Lipa in “The Dionne Warwick Talk Show” sketch, accepted an offer to egg Williams house with Warwick. The real Warwick responded to the specific joke on Twitter, by pointing out that it’s simply too cold for such an activity.
Both renditions of the sketch have seen Nwodim’s Warwick joined by SNL featured players Punkie Johnson (Saturday Night Live, Space Force), as Warwick’s niece and social-media-sidekick Brittani Warwick, and Andrew Dismukes (Saturday Night Live, Call Me Brother), as a throw-away segment guest who Warwick sings-over. “The Dionne Warwick Talk Show” also relies on Saturday Night Live’s gallery of impressionists, who provide Nwodim’s Warwick with a panel of guests. While the first version of the sketch saw then-host Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name, Little Women) try his hand at an impression of musician and former One Direction member Harry Styles, this past weekend saw Jonas as himself, Villasenor as Dua Lipa and star of NBC’s new sitcom Kenan, Kenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live, Kenan & Kel) as recent Suoer Bowl halftime performer, The Weeknd.
Pete Davidson’s (Saturday Night Live, The King of Staten Island) brief impression of musician Machine Gun Kelly prompted a response from Warwick’s niece on Twitter. Aside from bashing Williams and ignoring Dismukes, Warwick’s inability to overcome her fear of Machine Gun Kelly has been another running-joke between both versions of the sketch. Warwick’s real life niece shared her delight with this portion of the sketch on Twitter, optimistically commenting that “maybe one day” Saturday Night Live’s fictional-version of her aunt will be able to overcome her phobia of the tatted rap artist.
Saturday’s episode marked the start of a month-long hiatus for Saturday Night Live, which will return on March 27 with Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, Big Mouth) as host. The Saturday Night Live alumni and Emmy-winning Kamala Harris impressionist has once played Warwick herself. Rudolph’s impression of the singer was featured on an episode of Netflix’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Perhaps Nwodim and Rudolph will engage in a battle-of-the-Warwicks upon Saturday Night Live’s late March return.