Tracy Morgan is going to make us laugh again–and he’s picked a familiar stage to start doing it. This afternoon, NBC announced that the comedy star will begin his comeback as host of the October 17 edition of “Saturday Night Live.” It will be his first live performance since being nearly killed on the New Jersey Turnpike last summer.
NBC announced the happy news via the “SNL” Twitter feed.
We’re excited to announce our first three hosts of Season 41: @MileyCyrus, @amyschumer, and @RealTracyMorgan! #SNL pic.twitter.com/cVOrHZKPBk
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) August 17, 2015
About an hour later, Morgan tweeted:
Stoked to be going home…#SNL
— Tracy Morgan (@RealTracyMorgan) August 17, 2015
It’s fitting that Morgan launches his comeback at Studio 8H. He got his first big break as a regular “SNL” cast member from 1996 to 2003. This will actually be his second time as a host; he first came back to 30 Rock to host the March 14, 2009 edition.
Morgan has spent the last year recovering from a horrific crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, when a Walmart truck slammed into a limo carrying him and several comedians on the way back from a show in Delaware. Morgan’s longtime friend and mentor, James “Jimmy Mac” McNair, died in the crash, while Morgan was gravely injured. Morgan suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken leg, a broken nose, and several broken ribs. He spent two weeks in a coma, and it was only after coming to that he found out McNair was gone.
In July 2014, Morgan sued Walmart after obtaining evidence that the driver, Kevin Roper, had no business behind the wheel. Roper, as it turned out, had been awake for 25 hours straight–11 of which were spent driving from his home outside Atlanta to a distribution center in Delaware, even though there were several centers within a more reasonable distance. Morgan’s suit contended that Walmart had a bad habit of letting its drivers flout federal work rules on work hours and time behind the wheel.
At the time of the crash, Roper had been on the clock for 13.5 hours and behind the wheel for 9.5 hours–meaning that he could have only legally been on the clock for another half-hour. Roper is currently facing charges of death by vehicle and assault by vehicle; New Jersey law doesn’t allow you to get behind the wheel if you’ve been awake for 24 hours straight. Even in the face of this evidence, Walmart initially made a patently insulting argument that since Morgan wasn’t buckled up, he wasn’t entitled to a penny.
However, cooler–and more decent–heads prevailed. After reaching a settlement with McNair’s family, Walmart settled with Morgan for an undisclosed sum this past May. However, as part of the settlement, Walmart admitted its responsibility for the accident, and according to Morgan “did right” by him financially.
For much of 2014 and the early part of 2015, it was thought that Morgan’s career might have been over. However, when Morgan gave his first post-crash interview to Matt Lauer of the “Today” show in June, he said that while he wasn’t “100 percent yet,” he would definitely let us know when he was ready to “get back to making you laugh.” We should all be glad that day is coming in two months as host of SNL.
