Kenan Thompson is Regina King's Monologue Hype Man on SNL

Regina King has been in the Hollywood game since she was a kid on 227, but this was her first time hosting Saturday Night Live and she's earned enough respect with her work that she got her own monologue hype man in Kenan Thompson. 

"If you're black, you probably know me from being in some of your favorite movies, and if you're white, you probably know me from Watchmen or this monologue right now," she joked, before Thompson came out to add some loud and proud crowd work to support her punchlines, including a joke about how her Golden Globe-nominated directorial effort One Night in Miami was actually about "a historic night in which Luke, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, and Pitbull ate dinner at a Waffle House." Eventually, though, his hype got a little aggressive, to the point of threatening some kung-fu action on one particular audience member, and King had to reel him in and handle it herself. 

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.