Molly Shannon and Whitney Houston’s Catholic schoolgirl ‘SNL’ skit almost didn’t happen

nypost.com:

“Hello Molly!: A Memoir,” and stopped by Howard Stern’s eponymous radio show Tuesday.Shannon collaborated with Houston — who died in 2012 at age 48 — on a “Saturday Night Live” sketch in the ’90s involving the former’s infamous Catholic schoolgirl character, Mary Katherine Gallagher.The “Wet Hot American Summer” actress described to the shock jock, 68, how the sketch involving Houston came to be.“Whitney was so nice.

They’re like, she’s not going to be in the sketch. She’s not going to do it,” Shannon said. “I was like, ‘She’ll do it. Let me go talk to her.'”The “I Will Always Love You” songstress was the musical guest on the Dec.

14, 1996 episode of “Saturday Night Live.” Rosie O’Donnell was the host of that evening’s show and Penny Marshall made an appearance.The sketch featured two nuns (O’Donnell and Marshall) prepping their students for a choir competition.

Houston played “the perfect Jennifer,” a snobby popular girl who Mary Katherine tries to “out-sing” the holiday tunes “Little Drummer Boy” and “Sleigh Ride.”Shannon went on to note that while the Grammy winner was happy to do the skit, the “White Lotus” actress was worried that the singer would not show up.“Sometimes I would see where they would approach the musical guest and they would have too many lines or it’s too confusing,” Shannon added. “And I thought, ‘They don’t want to have all of this pressure memorizing these lines.’ So I just told Whitney, ‘Look, I’m going to play the Catholic school girl.