This was a massive season forSaturday Night Live, which celebrated 50 years on air. Along with two huge specials – amusical celebrationand thebig primetime anniversary show– it was also an election year. The season was loaded from start to finish with returning cast members and huge guest stars.
You’d think this would translate into a truly memorable run of episodes, but alas, that wasn’t the case with a season that was as choppy as any over the past decade. Which isn’t to say there was nothing good; as with every season, there were any number of sketches that got a lot of attention and laughs. Sometimes more the former than the latter – see the mega-popularDomingosketchesstarring Marcello Hernández, which, let’s face it, only went viral because each of them co-starred a pop princess with a huge stan army. But others were legitimately hilarious.
The early part of the season saw the return of Andy Samberg, who was cast as would-be first dude Doug Emhoff. Those sketches are practically unwatchable now thanks to how the election shook out, but luckily, Samberg teamed up with his Lonely Island boys for a couple of brand-new digital shorts. The first and best was Sushi Glory Hole, in which he and Akiva Schaffer pitch their totally “not weird” business idea for sushi-sized holes in bathroom walls where hungry subscribers can be fed “shockingly high-grade fish”, assuming they don’t drunkenly stumble into the wrong stall and get a mouthful of something different, as Mikey Day’s unsuspecting club-goer learns the hard way.
The best election sketch saw the return of gleefully sadistic game show What’s That Name?. A passionate liberal contestant (John Mulaney) warns that this is the most important election in American history, just as he did in 2020. Now, less than eight years later, he can’t recall the name of Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine, who shows up in person to ask the titular question. Kaine is not only game for poking fun at himself (particularly his resemblance, in more ways than one, to then current Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz), he also plays a wonderful sad sack. I’d go so far to say that of all the major presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the last five election cycles, he’s the most comedically gifted.
Speaking of elections, Saturday Night Live had Kate McKinnon as Clintoncome out and performLeonard Cohen’s Hallelujah during the post-election cold open in one of the most wretched and embarrassing moments in the series’ history. They managed to avoid that this time around, although at the start of the post-inauguration episode, it seemed as though they were about to go down a similarly cringy path: dressed in his Hamilton garb,Lin-Manuel Mirandastarts to rap about American democracy, only to be brutally cut off by a victorious Trump (James Austin Johnson). Everyone is forced to stand still and silent while Trump rambles on. The best bits are directed at Miranda: “Look at Lin. He got tricked into coming here and now he’s frozen on stage. Oh, he’s furious … look how bad he wants to do a rap. He wrote a whole rap and he doesn’t get to do it. Oh, the audience would have eaten that right up.” The rare case where modern SNL had its finger on the cultural pulse, recognizing that the age of liberal optimism as represented by Hamilton is dead as the man himself.
The big 50thanniversary specialbrought out just about every cast member still living and gave a number of the big guns their own spotlight.Adam Sandlergot to do amusical tributeto the show where he made his name and, in typical Sandler fashion, it was both funny and sweet. The best part of it was its conclusion, which included a moving tribute to the late Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald, two of the greatest cast members of all time. The segment also earns extra points for being introduced by none other thanJack Nicholson, making his first public appearance in years.
If the Sandman’s song was the most moving part of the 50th anniversary show, the funniest was, of all things, thein memoriam segment.Tom Hankscame out projecting serious gravitas, before pulling the rug out from everyone to reveal this wasn’t a look back at departed cast and crew, but rather all the sketches, jokes and guest stars that “have aged horribly”. The long list includes all manner of ethnic stereotypes, sexual harassment, child molestation, gay panic, problematic guests, racial slurs and whatever the hell Adrien Brody was doing with his Rasta Man getup. A great bit of self-skewering and a reminder that SNL is still able to push the envelope when it so chooses (see the final entry on this list for an example of such).
WhenElon Muskmade himself into the second most important person in Trump’s presidential campaign, it was clear Saturday Night Live would have to get someone to play him. At first, the job went to Dana Carvey, who was in just about every episode of the first half of the season. Despite his talent at celebrity impersonation, his Musk just didn’t connect. This all changed post-anniversary show, when the big recurring guest spot, as well as the Musk character,was given toCarvey’s Wayne’s World co-starMike Myers. Bringing a lot of personal anger to the part – owing mostly to Trump and Musk’s proposed plan to annex his native Canada – his version of the tech oligarch is much more specific and, more importantly, meaner. Myers was unafraid to mock Musk’s grating verbal and physical tics. The impression occasionally leans a little too much into Myers’s Dr Evil persona (a character rumored to be modeled after Lorne Michaels), but regardless, what he nails is that, for all of his wealth and power, Musk is and always will be a try-hard loser. The fact that Musk immediately started crying publicly about the sketch was proof that Myers got it right.
Ego Nwodim has been the most underrated member of SNL for years now. Her appearances on Weekend Update are especially strong examples of this, which is why it was so cathartic to watch her finally score a big viral hit withher performance as Miss Eggy, her stand-up persona in Def Jam mode. Auditioning to host the White House correspondents’ dinner, her material revolves entirely around food and her sex life (“I see y’all got jicama on the menu – more like, here come another man with another excuse”). Things really get cooking when she invites the audience to shout out non-existent catchphrases, which leads to them yelling ‘SHIT!’ in unison (during Miss Eggy’sreturn in the season finale, Colin Jost claims this earned an FCC fine). A bravura performance from Nwodim and the funniest the show has been all season.
There were a few sketches from theJon Hamm-hosted episodethat might have made this list, including the popularWhite Lotus parody, but ultimately, this one is just too real to leave off. Hamm and Nwodim star as co-anchors of a business news program for regular Americans living check-to-check. The market turmoil caused by Trump’s erratic economic policy means nothing to them, but they’re feeling the hurt in other ways: “Boxed mac and cheese is up 4.5% to $1.59 … big-ass box of Bisquick is up from $2.39 to too damn much … candy bars are up from ‘sure, baby,’ to ‘put that back!’” This is the most relatable and casually brutal bit of political satire the show has done in ages. Also, Hamm and Nwodim have excellent chemistry together, as highlighted by their spontaneous and sarcastic rendition of En Vogue’s My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It).
In comedy, simple is usually better. This is certainly a lesson current day SNL would do well to remember, as their sketches are often overlong and overstuffed. A great example of the opposite came late this season, courtesy of Day. The set up is extremely simple: he’s supposed to join the update desk to discuss the Trump tariffs, but having just walked into a spider web, he thinks there’s a spider on him (“I felt it on my skiiiin! On my skiiiin!”) and violently freaks out. This feels like something from the early days of SNL. Kudos to Day for his ace pratfalling.
As per recent tradition, Weekend Update hosts Jost and Michael Che had to blind read jokes written by one another during thego-home Christmas episodeand the season finale. The former saw Jost go viral for delivering a joke about wifeScarlett Johansson’s private parts. He extracts some revenge this time around, having Johansson –who hosted the finale– come over to the desk so that Che could apologize face to face, before explaining: “Mainly, I’m just embarrassed about my own body. I can’t even take my hoodie off during sex because I have more nipples than a pregnant dog.” It seems as if Jost has won this round of offensive one-upmanship, until Che gets him to basically say the N-word by way of a long-winded joke involving father-son basketball coaches Steve and Nick Kerr. It’s a truly spit-take-worthy bit that would fit right in with that in memoriam bit from the anniversary special.