Jon Hamm hosted the old warhorse SNL last night and I didn’t know what to expect. As expected, there was a lame Mad Men sketch, made only barely palatable by the presence of Elizabeth Moss and John Slattery, but whether Hamm could do comedy or not was up in the air. Plus, with Amy Poehler on the verge of dropping Will Arnett’s love bundle…

Oh, she dropped. ((I’ve got Saturday Night Live Poehler-Arnett in the babyname pool.)) With musical guest Coldplay, that sadly meant more faux-angsty music so gay that it makes me feel like a red-stater when I jam out to West Side Story. But they had to do something to plug up Amy’s crack.

So we’ve got…

• a shortened show with an unproven host…
• the only musical guest worse than Clay Aiken…
• a too-long opening sketch…
• a weak Mad Men parody sketch, despite cameos.

The verdict?

Jon Hamm is funny! And he does a decent James Mason impression. To you younguns wondering who James Mason is, I say rent a movie from before you were born once in awhile. Sure, the explosions are fewer, but so are the Rob Schneider appearances.

Here’s @dloehr‘s tweet regarding Hamm’s hosting abilities: “Hamm reminded me of Alec Baldwin, game for anything, good mimic & able to carry the last half hour alone. (I timed it.)”

Sounds just about right.

Here’s one of Hamm’s excellent sketches. Not my favorite, but solid.

What did everyone else think?