Entertainment

WATCH: ‘SNL’ mocks Lance Armstrong, Manti Te’o and Jodie Foster

Sometimes the humor writes itself.

Lance Armstrong, Manti Te’o and Jodie Foster served as easy targets during this weekend’s episode of “Saturday Night Live,” with host Jennifer Lawrence reprising her “Hunger Games” role and mocking her Oscar rivals.

The cold open featured a dream-team episode of “Piers Morgan Tonight” – full of celebs who’ve said too much, haven’t said enough, or kept us wondering about what they said.

Lance Armstrong (a doe-eyed Jason Sudeikis), used Morgan’s show to apologize to “all the people who couldn’t find the OWN Network on their televisions,” poking fun at Armstrong’s interview special with Oprah Winfrey in which he admitted to doping.

Paralleling the interview, the segment showed Armstrong using a series of short answers (and non-answers) to address his misdeeds.

“Is it cheating? Maybe,” ‘Armstrong’ said. “Am I sorry-ish? Yes. P.S. – no.”

Next up was Te’o, the Notre Dame football player whose ‘dead’ internet girlfriend Lennay Kekua was exposed to be a hoax.

SNL’s Manti (Bobby Moynahan) stared at the camera slack-jawed, trying to comprehend how Lennay would take the news that she isn’t real.

“A couple months ago she called me up on the phone, and she was like, ‘Hey, I have bad news, I’m dead.’ And I said ‘Oh no! Do you need a ride to the funeral?’ But she said, ‘No, it’s OK. My body is being shot out into outer space, so you don’t need to show up or ask any questions about it.’”

And then there was Foster, fresh off her frenetic un-reveal at the Golden Globes – a coming-out speech that didn’t specifically say anything, but said so much about celebrity and privacy and stardom and today’s camera-ready world.

“I’m 50, and I can stretch, and I can kick, and I can stretch, and I’m 50,” Foster (Kate McKinnon) said – just as the real Foster said at the Globes – mimicking Sally O’Malley, the sweat suit-clad character created by longtime SNL cast member Molly Shannon.

Faux Foster’s speech included further double-entendres and misdirections.

“I’d like to set the record straight once and for all,” McKinnon’s Foster said. “Just gonna put it out there. Loud and proud, right? Here we go. I am ga … me for anything.

“I’m just totally game for anything. I am also officially a Les … lie Nielsen fan. I just thought you all should know that. Oh, and I am obsessed with “Girls” – the show. I just love that show.”

Lawrence brought laughs in a “Hunger Games” press conference spoof, appearing as her movie character Katniss Everdeen – alongside a surly, diminutive Peeta (Taran Killam) – to address battle strategy and whether she used performance-enhancing drugs. One reporter (Kenan Thompson) asked about the origins of her name.

“Everdeen is an old District 12 name, and Katniss, my grandmother came up with,” she said. “She had a pretty severe speech impediment, and we never really knew if that’s what she had in mind.”

On the PEDs topic – “Absolutely not,” Katniss said.

For Peeta: “have you been using performance-reducing drugs?” another reporter (Jay Pharoah) asked before laughing the question off.

The “Silver Linings Playbook” actress trash-talked her Oscars competitors in a shaky monologue, calling “Zero Dark Thirty” actress Jessica Chastain “Jessica Chas-ain’t-winning-no-Oscar-on-my-watch.”

And then there was 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, for which Lawrence quipped, “the alphabet called, it wants its letters back.”

The Lumineers served as musical guests, performing the plucky “Ho Hey” to foot-stamping approval.

Then there was the Starbucks Verismo skit …

The fake commercial featured the coffee giant’s home brew machine. To simulate the in-store Starbucks ordering experience, the coffee machine kept spitting out incorrect orders – with the name on the cup showing a jumble of random letters.

Haha. OK.

But the commercial took a turn to insensitive when it introduced Verismo’s companion piece, Verquonica, with her dangling earrings and sassy Latin temper … and suddenly, a skit about a coffee machine acquired unnecessary, uncomfortable connotations.

Despite the bitter taste from Verismo and Verquonica’s exchange, the episode served as a solid starting point for 2013. Next week’s host is Adam Levine, who’s already struck SNL gold with 2007’s “Iran So Far” digital short. Justin Bieber follows on Feb. 9.