Whether he’s throwing down The People’s Elbow or underpinning the next explosive iteration of “Fast and the Furious,” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has a talent for keeping a franchise alive.
And with “Furious 7” hitting theaters on Friday, it was only fair that his fourth “Saturday Night Live” hosting appearance marked the return of another classic: The Rock Obama.
In the cold open sketch, President Barack Obama (Jay Pharoah) tried to keep his temper in check while meeting with three of his most outspoken critics: House Speaker John Boehner (Taran Killam), Sen. Tom Cotton (Kyle Mooney) and Sen. Ted Cruz (Bobby Moynihan).
But when the obstinate Republican senators pushed him too far, the commander-in-chief transformed into his surly counterpart: The Rock Obama (Johnson).
“Don’t be alarmed,” the hulking president said. “The Rock Obama much like Barack Obama, only larger and more violent.”
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His first target: Boehner.
“You. Orange Man,” he said, lifting Boehner by his collar. “You like Israel? Maybe you should go visit Israel!” as he tossed the House speaker through a White House window.
The Rock Obama dispatched with Cotton and Cruz in similar fashion, only to be interrupted by his wife Michelle (Sasheer Zamata) and an apologetic Secret Service agent (Beck Bennett).
“Turns out there’s been a mentally ill vagrant living in the White House garden for the last two months,” the agent said.
“Are you kidding me?! My garden?!” the first lady howled, before she, too, transformed into her larger, more violent alter-ego: She-Rock Obama (Leslie Jones).
“You tried to protect us—but who will protect you?!” she shouted, ripping off the agent’s arm and clubbing him over the head with it.
In his opening monologue, Johnson pointed out his skill at keeping franchises alive.
“Some folks in the industry have even referred to me as ‘Franchise Viagra,” he said, before launching into a song about how he’d revive movie series both moribund and beloved.
While filming a WWE promo shoot, Koko WatchOut (Johnson) took trash-talking with rival Trashyard Mutt (Moynihan) a little too seriously, to disastrous effect.
“He has herpes!” WatchOut shouted. "It's true! Oh, he's got herpes and he's got it bad!"
But even when Mutt asked him off-camera to keep the smacktalk limited to the wrestling mat, WatchOut overstepped his bounds.
“You remember the college girlfriend named Donna? It turns out that eight months after you broke up, she had a baby girl! Evelyn!
“What?!” a shellshocked Mutt cried.
“I met her! She’s a lovely girl! An honors student! And she doesn’t want a thing to do with you man, because you’re unfit to be a dad!”
Johnson also took on the title role in a mock movie trailer for an upcoming live-action reboot of “Bambi.” But unlike Disney original, Bambi and his friends—Thumper (Killam), Flower (Pharoah) and Faline (Cecily Strong) — have a thirst for vengeance and serious firepower.
“When I was a boy, they took away my mother,” the musclebound fawn says in the trailer. “Now it’s time for them to pay—dearly.”
On “Weekend Update,” co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che welcomed back Russian villager Olya Povlatsky (McKinnon) to discuss the Russian economy’s new signs of bouncing back. (Despite the recuperating ruble, she was still in need of a snack.)
“You know District 12 in Hunger Games? Based on richest neighborhood in my village,” she deadpanned. “Even Ebola would not come to Russia! It almost came, and then was like ‘No, too easy.’”
“Come on, Olya,” Jost chided her. “Russia can’t be that bad.”
“I have had frostbite ever since I was born, Colin,” she replied. “This is why my toes are like One Direction: Only four left.”
Breakthrough British singer-songwriter George Ezra lit up the Studio 8H stage, performing “Budapest” and “Blame It on Me.”
“SNL” returns on April 4 with veteran host Michael Keaton and first-time musical guest Carly Rae Jepsen.
