Pass the salt and… pepa! How could we forget about this one? Sir Patrick Stewart, then still merely Patrick Stewart, hosted Saturday Night Live. It was February 5, 1994, the 12th episode of the long-running show’s 19th season. As part of his hosting responsibilities, he had to introduce the episode’s musical act, in this case Salt-N-Pepa, the popular hip-hop group led by Cheryl James (Salt) and Sandra Denton (Pepa). Stewart, best known at the time as the super-serious Captain Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as a respected Shakespearean performer, seemed particularly jazzed, and almost giddy, to introduce both of their performances that evening.
And, between Stewart’s evident excitement, his very British accent, and the singular word “Pepa,” the actor delivered introductions that live on in people’s minds and… on the internet, which forgets absolutely nothing. Which brings us to February 16, 2025, when Stewart took to Instagram to post a video of the comic John Mulaney paying tribute to Stewart’s introduction. Stewart, in the post, wears a Salt-N-Pepa tee-shirt, and he captioned it by writing, “Ladies and gentlemen, IYKYK. Happy #SNL50!”
As for the actual post, it includes Mulaney’s amusing bit about Stewart’s pronunciation of “Pepa,” as well as a look at Stewart’s real introduction, followed by current footage of Stewart in a Salt-N-Pepa shirt, repeating the classic introduction. We then hear the Saturday Night Live theme music. Stewart’s post, as of June 2, 2025, has 84,500+ likes.
Fans hoping to see more of Stewart beyond his recent Instagram post are in luck. He appears briefly -- first in voiceover and then on screen -- in an advertising spot on behalf of DeLorean Motor Company, touting the next generation of the 1980s car famous for its pivotal role in the Back to the Future movies. The new version of the vehicle will be electric. “The best way to predict the future,” Stewart intones in the video, “is to create it.”
And it has been announced that Stewart will return to his decades-old role as Charles Xavier/Professor X in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, which is in production now. He’s also lending his voice to an animated feature titled Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie. Others in the voice cast include his frequent X-Men co-star Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nicholas Braun, Regina Hall, Bryan Cranston, and Chris O’Dowd.