The funniest “live” moment from Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s turn as Saturday Night Live host came when he played the role of a murder defendant whose alibi was that he spent the evening sending funny and/or rude text messages.
And, in what surely wasn’t an unintentional slap at another quarterback who once played for another New York team, one of the texts included a picture of Eli holding a banana in a place where said other quarterback was holding, well, something else. (Allegedly.)
And so when Eli returned to work on Monday, his teammates greeted him by, among other things, throwing bananas at him.
That’s what Eli said last night, via the New York Post, at an event for the Guiding Eyes for the Blind Golf Classic, which he has hosted six times.
Eli said that members of the cast were amazed he wasn’t nervous. “I do live every Sunday,’’ Eli told them.
True, but he’s usually tucked inside a helmet. And when the helmet is off, he typically reveals a narrow range of facial expressions.
But there he was on Saturday night, simultaneously sticking out his tongue and winking, in order to demonstrate the meaning of the ";-P” emoticon.
“You grow up watching it and it’s kind of one of those things, it was a personal deal,’’ Manning said. “I wasn’t doing it for any other reason except kind of as a challenge, and just an honor to walk on that stage and do that opening monologue and kind of walk through the band, you’ve seen so many people do that.
“I kind of said, ‘I’m pretty open to do whatever.’ I’m not going to be real reserved, I’ll do whatever I can do to have fun.’’
He seemed to be having fun. Which, given his normal football demeanor, is something he rarely seems to be having when he is “doing live” on Sunday.