Saturday Night Live (SNL) premiered on October 11, 1975 and recently celebrated their 50th anniversary with a special on February 16 (observing the anniversary a bit early as the show doesn’t really turn 50 until October 11, which is also a Saturday).
For this monumental occasion, SNL released a two-and-a-half hour special in place of their usual Saturday night episode after hosting a 50th anniversary concert the day prior. This special was jam-packed with references and tributes to past sketches, cast members, comedy styles and much more. However, as often is the case with SNL, some sketches fell flat.
To start the special, Sabrina Carpenter opened with Paul Simon to sing “Homeword Bound,” written by Simon while he was in Simon & Garfunkel. This musical performance was nothing special, however it was nice to see a contemporary artist performing alongside an artist who has been with SNL since the beginning. Simon first performed the song in 1976, a year after SNL began.
Following this, Steve Martin gave a standout opening monologue. Martin, admittedly, is a funny guy, especially in “Only Murders in the Building.” Martin’s monologue consisted of him masterfully winding together self-deprecating age jokes with topical political references. Some of my favorite bits were him asking if his hearing aides made him look good, his joke about the “Gulf of Steve Martin” and when he brought in Martin Short, who he then called ICE on, when Short complained about him not sharing the monologue.
Martin’s monologue was a good opener to an episode which had relatively few political jokes, instead tending to drift towards sequels to other sketches.
My general complaint about this episode is that they tended to do sequels or homages to other sketches (such as Debby Downer and Sweater Weather) which did little to update the format besides the vague and unconvincing “SNL 50” theme.
These sketches weren’t bad, per se, but they also weren’t creative. A lot of their comedy came from interacting with celebrities in the audience, rather than original, political or punchy jokes. The sketches that succeeded as sequels (Black Jeopardy and the John Mulaney Musical Sketch in my opinion), incorporated either current events into their humor or did their normal thing with old cast members.
Due to the doubled (and then some) runtime of this special, I am going to go over my top three favorite and my two least favorite sketches, clips, compilations and musical performances of the night. I will first start with the top three, then go to the bottom two.
The best sketch of the night was by far the alien abduction sketch. The next installment in a series of sketches with this premise, everything in this particular sketch, from writing to actors, was just fabulous. It featured Kate McKinnon, Pedro Pascal, Woody Harrelson, Aidy Bryant, Jon Hamm and had a cameo from Meryl Streep. I mean, what can be bad if it has Meryl Streep in it?
The sketch’s premise is that the space force (Hamm and Bryant) has gathered three people who claimed they were abducted by aliens. McKinnon, Pascal and Harrelson play stereotypical, redneck-esque people, who have to recount their close encounters. The humor comes not just from these three being in the same room, but from McKinnon’s, and later Streep’s, drastically different experiences with the aliens.
Pascal and Harrelson tell Hamm and Bryant that the aliens were nebulous, light-based beings who gently and carefully abducted, probed and placed them back in their beds. McKinnon and Streep, playing McKinnon’s mother, tell how the aliens grabbed them with rusty metal claws, pantsed them and chucked them in the cargo hold, eventually dropping them out a trapdoor onto a funeral. Of course this conundrum leads to plenty of X-rated jokes from McKinnon and Streep, which often deal in innuendo and wordplay. As the cherry on top, Streep and Pascal begin to flirt in the middle of the sketch, which is remarkably funny and sweet.
The second best bit is, naturally, John Mulaney’s musical rendition of New York City throughout the decades. If you know me at all, you know I am a theatre kid, which may make me biased to this sketch. It’s just fun musical parody performances all the way through. Starting with “Heroin and Hot Dogs” for the seventies, it goes to “Coke and Some Vodka” for the eighties, then a “Look Down/On My Own” Times Square mascot lament for the nineties. The sketch continues with Rudy Giuliani giving up his shot (à-la Hamilton) for the aughts, a mayoral recap for the 2010s, “Suddenly E-Bikes” for the modern day, and a big “One Day More” finale for the future. All this happens while Mulaney tries to convince Pete Davidson to stay in New York, despite the fact that it is unaffordable, hard to live in, crime ridden and apparently gave Davidson herpes. The musical elements feature Nathan Lane, Kenan Thompson, Scarlett Johansson, Cecily Strong, Paul Rudd and many others. The bow on top is, of course, Thompson’s lobster and Maya Rudolph as the Statue of Liberty simultaneously insulting and praising NYC, joined by the rest of the cast for the “One Day More” finale. As well as the green M&M. She’s great too.
My third favorite sketch was the return of Black Jeopardy. Thompson, as always, is a fabulous host for Black Jeopardy, with Eddie Murphy, Tracy Morgan, Leslie Jones and Tom Hanks filling out the contestants. This sketch, despite being a sequel to the other Black Jeopardies, retains its charm and humor. It too uses the “SNL 50” as a framework, but instead of this theme motivating the entire sketch, it is one of the Jeopardy categories. Tom Hanks provides a refreshing modern take on his character Doug, which matches the current political climate, while still retaining Doug’s original (if slight) charm.
Now onto the two bad sketches. ‘Sketch’ is really not the right word, as the worst aspects of the night (outside the T-Mobile advertisement) were the ‘Physical Comedy’ and ‘Commercial Parody’ compilations. These were lazy attempts to play old hits of the show without bringing back their sketches. Even though they included some of my favorite cast members and the fabulous Bass-O-Matic, they did nothing new with them. These two sequences felt like modern Marvel movies; little substance besides the wow factor of repeated cameos.
The third compilation sequence, however, did do something original, which lifts it above the other two. The “We f*cked up” compilation lampooned SNL’s past cultural insensitivity, bad sexual jokes and creepy sketches. This one did do something original, as on-screen text kept getting more horrified at what the show did in the past, in time with the audience. It also, unlike the first two, didn’t play its clips just for laughs, but the laughs came from the critique. The first two did nothing of the sort. If I want to relive SNL clips, I’ll go look them up on YouTube.
Overall, the episode was a stellar celebration of SNL’s 50th year and onward run. While some aspects were weak, most were strong.
If you disagreed with my tier list or my opinions you can email me ([email protected]) if you really feel like it.
