During the season 50 finale of Saturday Night Live, attendees were met with a humorous twist as they encountered not one, but two figures resembling Will Ferrell during the opening monologue.
However, fans of the beloved 58-year-old former SNL star quickly noticed something was amiss as the supposed Ferrell made his entrance down the stairs, launching into what was expected to be a familiar comedic routine.
In a clever twist, it was not Ferrell himself but Chad Smith, the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose uncanny likeness to the comedian has long been a topic of light-hearted banter between the two.
Donning a gray suit with a tieless black shirt, Smith mirrored the ensemble of the real Ferrell, who soon appeared on stage to reclaim the spotlight from his impersonator, much to the audience’s amusement.
Attempting to play the part, Smith enthusiastically declared, “I’m thrilled to be back here hosting Saturday Night Live. Thrilled! I was a cast member here for seven years, and now I’m hosting for the sixth time! Amazing. It really feels like coming home.”
But the comedic charade reached its peak when the real Will Ferrell made his dramatic entrance from the back of the stage, promptly heading to the front to dispel the charade and take back his rightful place in the spotlight.
Saturday Night Live audience members were seeing double this week after they were confronted with what appeared to be two Will Ferrells in the season 50 finale’s opening monologue
But fans familiar with the 58-year-old former cast member picked up on something fishy as soon as he bounded down the stairs to start his monologue. That’s because it wasn’t actually Ferrell at all, but his doppelgänger, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith (pictured)
‘Hey, hey! Excuse me! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Ferrell said breathlessly as he stood side-by-side with Smith to emphasize their resemblance.
Smith, still in character, gestured toward the audience and shot back, ‘I think I’m hosting the show.’
An indignant Ferrell replied, ‘You’re not the host, I am. You’re Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.’
As the audience started to cheer and applaud for Smith, Ferrell turned to them and shouted, ‘No! Shut up! Everyone shut up!
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ he continued. ‘He pushed me down backstage! And I fell! Hard!
‘Lorne [Michaels] had to give me mouth-to-mouth,’ he said of SNL’s creator and executive producer. ‘Seriously, what are you even doing here?’
Smith looked as if he was about to fess up, though his answer didn’t satisfy Ferrell.
‘OK, I’m the musical guest tonight,’ the drummer said sheepishly.
‘Hey, hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Ferrell said after bursting onto the stage as he stood side-by-side with Smith to emphasize their resemblance. ‘He pushed me down backstage! And I fell! Hard! Lorne [Michaels] had to give me mouth-to-mouth’
Smith bizarrely tried to claim that he was the show’s musical guest, but Ferrell corrected him by noting that Paul McCartney was the evening’s performer
‘No, you’re not. No, you’re not,’ Ferrell said as he wagged his head side to side. ‘No, Paul McCartney is the musical guest.’
He shooed Smith away and ordered him to ‘just get of the stage, now!’
As the audience started to send off the Chili Peppers drummer with applause, Ferrell interrupted them again.
‘No, no, don’t clap for him. Don’t. Don’t clap for him. He’s a bad guy,’ he said, before admitting that the whole segment had been ‘really weird.’
Then Ferrell suggest he perform a ‘hard reset’ as he began his monologue all over again as if nothing had happened.
But after picking up where Smith left off and bragging that he was hosting SNL for the sixth time, Ferrell paused to say that it felt off.
‘You guys feel that. I’m very off. Chad Smith, he took the wind out of my sails. This sucks,’ he said in a funk. ‘I don’t even know if we should do the show. That’s where I’m at, emotionally.’
After the audience shouted for him to go on with the show, Ferrell joked in perfect deadpan that he would do ‘what the host does when they don’t have any ideas, so I’ll take questions from the audience.’
After deciding the monologue just felt off after Smith’s intrusion, Ferrell decided to answer audience questions, with the first one going to Paul McCartney, who was convinced that Ferrell was actually the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer
He took his first question from ‘the cute one,’ which turned out to be Paul McCartney.
‘Yeah, I have a question. What do you think you’re doing, Chad?’ said McCartney.
Ferrell invited him onstage to clear up the confusion, admitting that he and Smith ‘do look a lot alike,’ but the Beatles bassist wasn’t convinced.
‘Nice try, Chad. Get back behind the drums where you belong!’ McCartney shouted.
‘Paul, with all due respect, you look like a fool right now,’ the Elf star said.
He admitted McCartney had written some great songs, and started naming a few, but the list continued to grow as Ferrell continued naming classic after classic, both from the singer–songwriter’s days in the Beatles, as well as from his solo material.
Several songs in, McCartney suggested ‘Penny Lane,’ which Ferrell was suddenly dismissive of.
He added that there were several great songs the rocker hadn’t written, including ‘the alphabet song, Timber featuring Pitbull,’ and ‘all the Smash Mouth stuff.’
On social media, fans marveled at just how good of a match Smith made for Ferrell
One user shared a screenshot of Ferrell and Smith together on stage and raved that seeing them in the same frame was ‘too good’
Ferrell and Smith hung out recently, as they were spotted sitting near each other in April at game three of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the LA Kings and the Colorado Avalanche
But McCartney simply whispered, ‘Get your a** behind the drums, Chad.’
Then Smith ran back out to sign off before the first post-monologue sketch of the night.
On social media, fans marveled at just how good of a match Smith made for Ferrell.
‘They really do look alike!’ one person wrote on X, while another fan called his cameo ‘epic.’
Another fan wrote that ‘Chad and Will side by side FINALLY proves they are TWO separate people!!!! Hilarious!’
One poster opined that ‘Will & Chad could literally be twins, lol.’
Another user shared a screenshot of Ferrell and Smith together on stage and raved that seeing them in the same frame was ‘too good.’
Contrary to what many viewers at home thought, Ferrell and Smith have already been side by side before.
The two poked fun at their resemblance, which has long been a subject of memes, back in 2014, when they appeared together on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a charity drumming competition.
Ferrell and Smith even hung out recently, as they were spotted sitting near each other in April at game three of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the LA Kings and the Colorado Avalanche.
