Jenna Ortega’s first order of business as the next host of “Saturday Night Live” is to escape the “teenage purgatory” of performing the iconic “Wednesday” dance yet again.
In a new “SNL” promo released on Wednesday, of course, Ortega looks at a script as she speaks to Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, the Please Don’t Destroy Boys comedy trio.
“Honestly, this is really well written, I just don’t feel like I want to do the ‘Wednesday’ dance for promo because we’ve seen so much of that already and I think it’s time to do something new,” Ortega says.
The PDD Boys agree with Ortega, until the camera pans out to reveal they’re dressed “down to the frill” in Wednesday Addams-inspired black dresses and braided wigs. After pretending like they don’t know the “Wednesday” dance at all and had no intention of filming it for the promo, Ortega finally agrees to go along with their poorly masked desire to indeed do the dance.
In true Wednesday Addams fashion, Ortega stoically performs a snippet of the dance on the iconic “SNL” stage in between Higgins and Marshall while Herlihy captures the moment on a smartphone.
The “Wednesday” dance took on a life of its own when it went viral on social media after the scene appeared in the Netflix show late last year.
The “SNL” promo comes on the heels of an interview in which Ortega spoke about how she’d frequently change her character’s lines during “Wednesday’s” production, which spurred mixed reactions from those in the television industry.
“SNL” airs live Saturday at 11:30pm EST/8:30pm PST on NBC and streams live on Peacock. Ortega is this week’s host with The 1975 as the musical guest.
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