Jon Hamm hams it up on Saturday Night Live

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

Given the Arts Online team’s collective obsession with all things Mad Men, Jon Hamm’s stint as host on Saturday Night Live this past weekend was a hotly anticipated event around this office.

Personally, I had my doubts about Hamm’s appearance on the show. Don’t get me wrong, I'd set my TiVo to capture this dreamboat reading from the phone book, but since he spends much of his Mad Men screen time brooding, furrowing his brow and playing out some protracted life crisis as Don Draper, he wasn't a natural choice to yuk it up alongside the Not Ready For Prime-Time Players.

So I’m delighted to report that Hamm was a smash on SNL. He shone in a commercial parody for “Jon Hamm’s John Ham: ham you can eat in the bathroom," mastered a bang-on James Mason impersonation and capably skewered his own smoldering Mad Men persona. In the process, he showed off his lighter side and displayed a flair for delivering slightly scatological jokes with a straight face.

Twitter and forum posters are already mentioning Hamm in the same breath as another SNL fave, frequent guest host Alec Baldwin, so let's hope the Mad man gets asked to appear on the show again soon.

--Lee Ferguson