Saturday Night Live

“Birdman” to “Beetlejuice”: It's Showtime as Michael Keaton Hosts “SNL”

Michael Keaton has officially stepped back into the limelight—but that doesn’t mean he can’t bring his past with him.

Keaton, who came to fame in movies like 1988’s “Beetlejuice” and 1989’s “Batman,” earned an Oscar nod this year for his (semi-autobiographical) role as a former movie superhero in (the Oscar-winning) film “Birdman.”

That’s presumably what he was planning to talk about in his third “Saturday Night Live” hosting appearance. But he was interrupted by two fanboys (Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan), who launched into a song begging him to reprise his classic roles for them.

“Will you play ‘Batman’ with us, Michael Keaton?” they sang. “Put on the suit, we’ll play the villains that you’ve beaten.”

(Twice castmate Jay Pharoah burst onstage in “Batman” and “Beetlejuice” costumes, only for Moynihan and Killam to roar at him to go back offstage. “You guys told me to dress like this!” Pharoah shouted.)

Finally, as more of the cast joined the musical number, Keaton motioned for silence.

“I’m Batman,” Keaton growled. “And boys? It’s showtime.”

Keaton summoned some of his Beetlejuice-inspired absurdism as he sorted through his Easter gifts in “An Easter Message with Michael Keaton and Portia” (a bunny-eared Kate McKinnon).

“Oh look—this is a Cadbury egg,” he deadpanned. “I gave those up for lent last year. You know what I gave up this year? Cocaine.”

In the cold open, CBS sports analysts Ernie Johnson (Beck Bennett), Kenny Smith (Jay Pharoah) and Charles Barkley (Kenan Thompson) discussed Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's surprising decision to hold his star forward out of Monday’s championship game for a biology test.

“Guys, these are student-athletes,” Krzyzewski (Killam) said. “If these kids only came to college to play basketball, then we’d all look pretty silly.”

Smith sympathized with the decision.

“At North Carolina, I studied all the time,” he said. “Because I’d be damned if I was the only one in the NBA who did not know the poetry of Emily Dickinson.”

On “Weekend Update,” co-hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost welcomed Resident Young Person Pete Davidson for a spoiler-free recap of the “Walking Dead” finale. But Davidson’s take quickly unspooled into pot-fueled zombie paranoia.

“When I’m high, it’s really easy to mistake me for a zombie,” Davidson said. “I’ll probably be wandering around in search of candy, and I’ll wander into some survivor’s camp — and then they’re gonna shoot me.”

Jost downplayed Davidson’s fears, only to see them confirmed as a crossbow arrow appeared in Davidson’s chest — courtesy of “Walking Dead” zombie slayer Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus).

“Hey, you’re the dude from ‘Boondock Saints!” a still-high Davidson realized.

“And you’re the dude who’s gonna show me where that awesome weed is,” Dixon said.

Infamously harsh 1860s newspaper critic Jebidiah Atkinson (Killam) also stopped by to render his reviews of the upcoming series of “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones.”

“‘Mad Men’ — The most likeable character on that show is cigarettes,” Atkinson opined to Che. “Hey AMC: If I wanted to know what life was like in the 1960s, I’d move to Indiana!”

In more fake news, Brooke Baldwin (Cecily Strong) discussed some of the week’s top stories from “the loose collection of daytime nonsense we call the CNN newsroom.”

On the docket: a laughably crummy 3D rendering of the Germanwings plane crash, Indiana’s religious freedom law as performed by an acting troupe (Keaton, Thompson and Aidy Bryant) and the Iranian nuclear negotiations as performed by puppets.

The episode also featured “Always Believe,” a 1990 music video from the Church of Neurotology with up-to-date annotations about what happened to the people in the video. (It’s a thinly veiled reference to the new documentary “Going Clear,” which delves into Scientology’s secretive practices).

Among the annotations: “Lost mind,” “not allowed to see family,” “in a hole,” “thrown off boat,” and the ominously frequent “missing.”

Carly Rae Jepsen — the Canadian pop singer of “Call Me Maybe” fame — graced the Studio 8H stage, performing “All That” and “I Really Like You.”

"SNL" returns April 11 with "Empire" actress Taraji P. Henson and musical guest Mumford and Sons.

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