Paul Rudd and a skeleton crew brave a pandemic-emptied SNL, since the show must go on
A COVID outbreak turns Rudd's Five-Timers Club Christmas episode into an eerie, deserted clip show
TV Reviews Paul Rudd
I am 52 years old. I remember the first Saturday Night Live, if not from watching it live (I would have been six), then certainly from the pop cultural scuttlebutt I was, even at that tender age, innately and improbably attuned to. Now, as a freelance TV writer lying on my bed (I write lying on by stomach—now you know), with a sleeping cat nestled unconcernedly on my butt and the grumbling moan of a Maine snowstorm outside the windows, I feel alone, and unaccountably unsettled. That with the spectacle of Lenny Pickett’s sax (and SNL’s keyboard player, whose name I am sorry not to know) playing off the handful of present and past SNL luminaries who’ve just put on some semblance of a show.
Saturday Night Live is over for the week (for the year, in fact), closing out 2021 with a skeleton crew’s defiant bravado, Paul Rudd’s anticipated Five-Timers Club Christmas Show turned, at the obvious last moment, into a clip show. With word still trickling out as to just how many of the SNL cast and crew were hastily sent home thanks to COVID protocols and a rumored raft of positive tests, Rudd, Kenan Thompson, Michael Che, Tina Fey, and Tom Hanks gamely held down an otherwise evacuated fort. (Platinum Lounge member Steve Martin made a filmed appearance, airily congratulating [insert star’s name here] into the Five-Timers Club, with three-time host Martin Short serving him a drink while doing shtick.)
I suppose some might quibble about the seemingly slapdash selection of old holiday sketches SNL trotted out in this unnervingly sparse trouper’s effort to fill 90 minutes of network airtime. Saturday Night Live’s had to scramble before in its long, long history, whether coping with drunk and/or intransigent hosts or the occasional anthrax attack. But this was different. With the five hardy souls on hand gamely ensuring that the show must, indeed, go on, the empty Studio 8H sounded cavernous, and oddly funereal. When Fey (filling in for an absent Colin Jost) and Che sat on director’s chairs and rattled off the night’s Weekend Update material to Hanks, Rudd, and Kenan seated in the empty front row, the cutaways for their reactions were chillingly intimate, their laughter the knowing camaraderie of people living through something powerfully strange and potentially perilous, together.
SNL did yeoman’s work in fashioning something that looked somewhat but not quite like Saturday Night Live for three episodes closing out a COVID-scuttled Season 45, cobbling together remote sketches and musical performances with an admirably scrappy resourcefulness born of necessity. And no doubt, this final 2021 episode would have performed similar patchwork professional plate-spinning, if the 8H quintet here weren’t so clearly doing their best amidst the scattered pages and abandoned coffee cups of an in-progress disaster movie. If you’ve ever seen the TV news crew gamely putting on a mid-zombie apocalypse broadcast at the beginning of the original Dawn Of The Dead, it’s hard not to feel a chilly twinge of recognition.
Am I making too big a deal out of this? Hell, I have no idea. New York had a record 21,000 new cases on Friday, as each new variant teaches the world the Greek alphabet, one letter at a time. The NFL has moved game days in an attempt to keep the football and CTE economy marching on, while essentially telling players they’re on their own by eliminating all the pesky testing that has deprived fans of their favorite stars. Meanwhile, the NBA is basically trolling the local YMCAs for players to fill in for its COVID-stricken rosters. Hell, even the Rockettes are down for the season.
Should SNL have shut it down (to pull from Tina Fey’s other former gig)? Hanks joked about his show-opening monologue appearance, handing over Rudd’s Five-Timer’s Club smoking jacket in an anticlimactically stripped-down ceremony. “I came here from California,” joked Hanks to open the show, “And if you think I’m going to fly 3,000 miles and not be on TV, well, you’ve got another think coming.” Fey came out to josh that Hanks “started COVID” like he started the Five-Timers Club, displaying the sort of gallows humor vibe that carried through much of the extremely sparse live content tonight.
Still, it was fitting that Hanks was there. SNL brought him out for the last show before the ominously looming 2016 Election Night, sensing rightly that America’s dad was what we needed. And Hanks did, unfortunately for him and wife Rita Wilson, bring the reality of COVID home by being one of the first famous people afflicted by the virus, with SNL’s decision to book the recovered Hanks to introduce the first of those pandemic at-home shows a similar emergency reassurance call. Whatever plans the show had for Hanks to goof on new kid Rudd’s Five-Timer’s admittance, SNL unwittingly gave us another dose of Hanks on a night where the sight of a shockingly empty 8H otherwise signaled doom and gloom.
There was a smattering of actual new material tonight. Apart from Fey and Che doing some raggedly untested Update material (Fey happily blew the same line she apparently blew in rehearsal), the show had banked three filmed pieces, one as early as 5 a.m. Saturday morning. That one, “An Evening With Pete Davidson,” struck an unintentionally creepy note in that there was a malfunctioning Colin Jost-bot as part of the film’s aging Pete Davidson’s cynically rehashed stage act. A Raging Bull parody, the film saw a potbellied, balding older Pete dutifully playing the hits (“Do Chad!,” Mikey Day’s audience member shouts) and wallowing in has-been self-regard.
I liked it. The would-be heartwarming element of the black-and-white short came when Rudd, as former SNL writer Eddie Corbin, manages to hand the cold-hearted Pete a Christmas present, complete with a note reading, “I saw this and I thought of you.” (It’s a box of weed.) Rudd makes his forgotten writer (Davidson credits him with the runaway joke of “How I was a famous sex symbol for reasons that no one could understand?”) sweetly, pathetically loyal, with Davidson’s patronizing change of heart seeing the actor gift his former pal, “one of my Oscars.” (It’s Viola Davis’ no-doubt inevitable Lifetime Achievement award.) The film looks great, and the joke that the aged Davidson is still performing duets with Machine Gun Kelly (or his urn, as Kelly apparently dies in 2051) is solid. It’d be a nice, self-referential little sketch if not for how Davidson’s farewell song to his bored but well-heeled audience echoed with unintentionally creepy “Don’t Look Back In Anger” vibes. “Goodbye, for now. We’ll see each other again.”
Kate and Aidy managed to film (on Thursday night) a commercial for a popular last-minute-gift department store chain alongside Rudd, in what felt like the best realized sketch of the three we got tonight. Anytime Aidy and Kate team up is guaranteed gold, and here, as a pair of elderly shoppers giving a testimonial about their favorite store, their gradually revealed grandchildren fetish is, in their hands, very funny. With exasperated commercial director Rudd vainly attempting to steer his subjects back to the chain’s nondescript wares (“Just say ‘sweater.’” “Why?”) in lieu of truthfully expressing their monomaniacal desire for grandbabies, the sketch builds on Kate and Aidy’s ever-perfect timing and chemistry.
Escalating from turning every product into an admonishment for their adult kids to get down to business already (“A fuzzy blanket… to swaddle grandchildren.”), the pair eventually get glassy-eyed weird with it. (“Scissors… to cut holes in condoms to give to Kelsey.”) Finally converting Rudd (always so good at infusing comic characters with unlikely humanity), the three riff delightfully on their imagined joys of grandparenthood, with Rudd noting that grandkids ask nothing, they just, “play clarinet and get into college.” It’s a nice little sketch that would have settled nicely into an actual show. Here, its air of normalcy sticks out amidst all the old sketches and effortful introductions.
That perennially mocked, ludicrously overwrought Christian holiday ballad “The Christmas Shoes” is the target of the third and final filmed piece, with department store shopper Rudd taking pity on Kyle Mooney’s adorable little boy, who just wants to buy his momma some socks for Christmas. Patton Oswalt memorably (and rightly) termed “The Christmas Shoes” “the eeriest, most horrific” Christmas song ever, but this musical sketch, instead, just leans into the absurdist possibilities of a strange man and a little boy holding up a line of holiday shoppers with a shared tale of woe and bird ownership.
Rudd, again, so great at imbuing a silly bit with ultimate commitment, listens intently to Mooney’s story about his family’s pet bird, whose recent escape is causing all his mother’s worry. That the bird is named T.J. Rocks, and eventually revealed as fronting a rockabilly Christmas band named T.J. Rocks and the Junkyard Boys (Charli XCX making her one, pre-taped appearance), and that the boy’s confused mom (Aidy) is understandably taken aback at this adult man’s interest in her son (“Well, I don’t love that,” she sings) are all the sort of weirdo embroidery I enjoy in a sketch. As is Rudd’s prying into the unspeaking nature of said bird, “To me, that’s kind of a waste of a bird.” Again, on its own, the piece is the sort of above-average entry that might or might not have made it into the final show. Here, these three in-the-can films are the carefully interspersed excuse for there to be a show tonight at all.
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
Yeah, like the rest of my traditional, dopey, review-spacing categories (and an episode grade), let’s skip this one for—at least—this week. If there’s one thing tonight’s eerily echoey live show made all too clear, it’s that anybody in New York City coming together in genuine risk of their goddamn lives just so we can have a few laughs is very valuable indeed. Special credit to Kenan and Che, while I genuinely spent the entire show hoping that everybody not onstage is all right. As for the rest of us: Get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask, don’t be a selfish asshole, and let’s all do our part to ensure that a night like this never has to happen again.
Stray observations
- The show-padding handful of old sketches were a wildly mixed bag. I guess “Dick In A Box” is still worth a chuckle (and, technically, it mentions Christmas). Honestly, though, complaining about the amount of effort spent plucking out previous years’ sketches to put out an episode in the midst of an abandon-ship health crisis is the sort of thing I’ll leave to other quarters of the internet. I just don’t have it in me.
- That said, my nostalgic appreciation of the pretty funny, Hanks-anchored “Global Warming Christmas Special” from 1991 was dampened by my realization that most of the people being portrayed (Carl Sagan, Dean Martin, Dom DeLouise, Linda McCartney) and the people impersonating them (Chris Farley, Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman) have died.
- The sketch did feature right-wing former cast member and global warming denier Victoria Jackson, who remains among us.
- The Eddie Murphy Christmas sketch reminded everyone once again just how goddamn brilliant Eddie Murphy can be in front of a live TV camera.
- Rudd’s director, musing upon the other benefits of being a grandparent, looks forward to having “weird opinions about Israel.” “Not bad, weird” asserts Rudd, with Aidy’s would-be grandma chiming in, “It’s the wrong shape!”
- The show’s long commercial interludes kept cutting to a presumably live shot of crowds congregating at the 30 Rock skating rink and Christmas tree. Good luck, everybody.
- Fey, reminiscing about a long-ago post-show skate on that very rink, notes that Kenan was the only one who knew his way around the ice. “Mighty Ducks forever, bitches!,” noted former knucklepuck virtuoso, Russ Tyler.
- Che, after a joke about Lousiana judge Michelle Odinet, suspended after being caught on tape using racial slurs (she’s a Republican, if you can believe it), asks in an aside, “Why are me and Kenan the only cast members here?”
- Rudd comes out to the tinny, scattered crew applause deadpanning expertly, “Thank you for coming—I’m extremely disappointed.” Not given much opportunity to be funny live otherwise, Rudd’s best joke was in the goodnights, where he beamingly misquotes, to a a masked but aggravated Hanks, “Life is like a big, weird chocolate bar.” You know, in that sometimes an eagerly anticipated, much-deserved treat is filled with orange creme and you eat it anyway since at least it’s something.
- Anyway, that’s a fittingly dispiriting wrap on SNL’s 2021. Please be safe this holiday season, and, just for a change, remember your responsibility to your fellow humans, howsabout.
179 Comments
Yeah, that was a weird one.There were some good reminders of how good some of the past years have been. I’d honestly forgotten about the Steve Martin “Christmas Wish”, my wife had never seen it, and we were nearly falling off the couch laughing.Television for the apocalypse. What an age.
This definitely had a “last show before the end of the world” vibe. Like pop culture historians in the year 3000 will say, “they didn’t know it would be the last time SNL ever aired, but… they kind of knew.”
Probably the best thing Steve Martin ever did on SNL
Probably the best thing Steve Martin ever did on SNLAnd that’s really saying something, too….
It made me think of Martin’s other monologue”I believe Ronald Reagen will return the USA to what it once was… a vast wasteland, covered in ice”.
I’d forgotten about Martin’s bit as well – just an absolute killer. “OK, THEN the crap with the kids…”
Hanks’ “Most Sexist Man” makes so much more sense than “Sexiest Man”.Maybe Hanks knows something, cause something’s going on.
He’s creepy.
lol u smaht
Certainly not an ideal show, but I definitely appreciated the effort and that they went through with it. Like the SNL at Home episodes, it was comforting in these weird times to have the show on in any form. I hope everybody in studio was safe.
Also grateful for the review. I logon every post-show Sunday to read it even when I haven’t yet watched the episode. Another welcome bit of consistency in these times.
Happy holidays, Dennis!
My favorite part of this episode was the goodnights, not just for the oddity of only five people on the stage, unwinding as best they could, but for the incredibly poignant sight of Lenny Pickett and Tuffus Zimbabwe playing viewers out of an uncertain 2021 and into an uncertain 2022. The band has not been showcased much at all by SNL in the last 20-25 years, to the point where, if you do see more of them, that means something has just been cut. Yet the band is so important in moments like these at getting atmosphere and tone. Much as the last season finale, the full stage, was a big celebration of COVID not having control over SNL anymore, the image of two band members as our goodbye on a barren stage is a reminder of just how little things have changed, or will change. It was a beautiful moment of stillness and clarity that I always want to see more of on this show. I’ve watched SNL most of my life, and while there have been very funny moments, it’s rarely a sketch show I’ve watched for the laughs, the way I did SCTV, or In Living Color, or at times Mad TV. It’s more often a show I’ve been fascinated by, or had cast members I felt a connection with. I think as I get older I see the show more as a document of history, not in the way of “responsibility” (Lorne Michaels has never been particularly great at that concept, and there is only so much responsibility a sketch show is ever likely to have anyway), but in how they react to an event and how that reaction will look 10 months or 10 years from now. That was never more true than this episode, which likely came about because of the experience of making “at home” episodes in spring 2020. It was made clear afterward that a number of people at the show didn’t like doing them, so they went back to the studio, with precautions. Those seemingly worked for a season and a half, but nothing lasts forever. They probably should have went back to at home for the December shows, just as a precaution (and as Billie Eilish said Lorne was wheezing and coughing most of the time – even if he was negative, it was not the best environment for people to be in). Instead Lorne and NBC thought they could grit through these two shows, until at the last minute they very much knew they could not. So Lorne was faced with either completely scrapping a show they’d prepared for and flown people out for, or doing what he did not ever want to do again – performances with zero audience. Considering the time crunch, I thought they did a pretty decent job with what they had and with the work of the returning hosts. Tina Fey, who to me spent her last years at SNL and many of her returns with that Lorne-ish vague sense of disdain, genuinely connected this time around. Paul Rudd, who is incredibly talented but often seems like an amiable mannequin when on SNL, got to talk more about himself and relax. Tom Hanks, once dubbed “America’s dad” moved into the role of America’s carer, holding our hand in what feels like our last years and reminding us that COVID is still there, or that we were supposed to care about global warming but no one who had any real power ever did. Kenan, the trouper, making a draining role seem fresh as always. Che, who tends to get more headlines for social media fights than his work at the show, sticking around to ask the unasked questions (his pointing out that he and Kenan were the only two who stayed was my main laugh of the night), and even popping up in the goodnights after many years spent avoiding them. I’m sorry that we missed some other cameos (there were rumors that Candice Bergen would have appeared), but the five we got (not counting Steve Martin and Martin Short, who were fine in their short bit, even if it would have relied on a raucous studio audience) were more than capable of filling out this surreal format. I did miss the Jost/Che joke swap, but this intimate feel for Update, just a few people in the audience just listening and playing along, is something I never really expected. I appreciated the different energy, as well as the laid-back work from Fey and Che. A real crossover moment no one would have expected.Of the new sketches, two were pretty much been there done that if you enjoy Kate/Aidy (I don’t, generally) or Kyle (I often do, even if this one felt a little too “states the obvious and laugh because we’re stating the obvious” [Aidy was the best part with her “I don’t like that” reaction to Paul befriending her son]) , the one I will remember is Pete’s film. Pete is enough of a deity at SNL at this point that he can do pretty much anything he wants, which is not always a good thing, but in this case, very much was. Such a thoughtful and stylish piece which reminded me of Tom Schiller, who was expect at using nostalgia and melancholy to take viewers on a journey. I hope the show will considering letting other cast members take the same journey, even if I acknowledge this piece worked as well as it did partly because of the solemn air and lack of hooting and hollering from the Pete-loving studio audience.
Overall I was fine with the repeat sketches, but the one I’ll remember was that endless global warming sketch, partly due to featuring some of my long gone favorites (like Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman) but also because it was such a perfect partner to this episode – 30 years apart, but both periods where SNL is helpless to the situation around them and can only just comment and mock as best they can. It was also a sobering reminder of how little things have changed, other than getting worse. Merry Christmas, indeed…
I was surprised at how long that Global Warming special bit went on (and that none of the celebrities mentioned during the opening announcement actually appeared in the bit).
I’m old enough to remember those celebrity specials. They were always billed as these all singing all dancing must see events. I think most of them featured an appearance by The Golddiggers, especially the ones where Dean Martin was on the guest list. They originated on his show, so they tended to be an associated act wherever he went, though they did shows without him as well.It was also not unusual to have people listed as guests who never made onto the screen. These shows were taped in front of a live audience, so I assume those acts were edited out for time.
I have no memory of those old sketches and I have no knowledge of Dean Martin besides vague impression of Sinatra buddy Vegas drunk white dinner jacket. But I still got it. It was fun.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure most of today’s audience is just too young to have the needed cultural references to connect to it. Granted, those references were still relatively fresh when the bit first ran a couple of decades ago.The underlying premise is pretty hilarious, considering Sagan spent his entire adult life desperately trying to get Americans to take science seriously. Bringing in tired Vegas acts to draw attention to global warming would be the ultimate last ditch effort.I’m 60 and was a small child when The Rat Pack was a big thing. These guys were on TV ALL THE TIME. From my perspective, Hanks and Meyers were both spot on as a near has-been Dean Martin and a tragically unhip Carl Sagan.
The tease of the celebs we never see was a classic Special trick to keep people watching. Subtle joke, but spot-on.What was surprising was seeing Tom Hanks smoking a cigarette! He wasn’t quite America’s dad at that point.
People say that period was a golden age, but I rarely watched it at the time, because the sketches were way too goddamn long. The current iteration of the show learned that seven minutes is the absolute drop dead limit, and most ideas need much less than that, and it’s much better as a result.
That Global Warming Christmas sketch being 30 years old is just flat out depressing. But, Phil Hartman!Anyway, I also really enjoyed Update. Not that I would want this to be its regular format, but it was a fun treat. It felt to me like I was sitting in on a rehearsal, or something like that.
I was hoping that they would still do the joke swap with Che and Fey, since presumably the material was already written.
yep. you know the white people jokes Che writes Colin every year would’ve been fun coming out of Tina’s mouth too.
She definitely could have sold them, but I also wonder if there was some combination of her not wanting to do them (understandable) and thinking it should be reserved for Che and Jost.
I really missed the joke swap, it’s consistently the funniest segment of the year. I love the easy comfort those two have with each other.
I suspect that Kate/Aidy film wouldn’t have aired during the show. It seemed kind of gormless, like it still needed to be shaped in the editing bay a bit. (And FWIW the christmas bird/whatever song was really underwhelming–maybe COVID wasn’t the only reason they scrapped the episode)Yeah Pete’s film really felt like a Schiller film, and honestly I wouldn’t mind if SNL brought these things back a little more frequently. At least as a break from faux-rap parodies.And yeah Fey certainly had more early-SNL energy here; it’s the first time she’s returned post-Palin where I didn’t get the impression she was there entirely for her own amusement. Last night’s skeleton crew was well-chosen.
I agree the Home Goods and bird videos were probably salvage jobs. They scrap a lot of material right up to going on air live. I know they tape a longer rehearsal and have a couple extra bits on hand if they need to change something for the West Coast. They didn’t have that luxury last night. These two bits had to be from early in the week and became Plan B when they didn’t do the rehearsal taping.
There’s a podcast type site (SNL Network) where they get info about the show, and they said the Kate and Aidy pre-tape was originally going to air after Update. I have a feeling the bird piece would not have made it to air though.Yes, non-musical Pete is always more interesting for me.
I agree. It ran entirely too long and was probably destined for the cutting room floor until the rehearsal and the live show got scrapped.
I appreciated your thoughtful recap, though I enjoy the shows and performers/performances MUCH more than you, and think about how Lorne’s hand has guided all the aspects of this show, who he has brought to us over the years and the legacy of all the talented comedians and music we have enjoyed for almost 5 decades. His bullpen is also so deep he can summon Hanks, Martin, Short, etc. to “pinch hit” while having Beatles and Stones in his pockets! People are nostalgic for some of the other sketch shows but watching them now, they don’t always hold up. There are fun moments (and many duds) in SC, ILC and very much Mad TV (which has a load of barely constructed sketches and a lot of 3/4 formed ideas) but SNL by sheer volume and span of time has quite a legacy of sketches (and as with the others a percentage of failures) over the years. None can compare. I felt even though this was not the show I was hoping for when I heard Rudd was hosting (he is game for everything, never half-asses a sketch and melds well with the other cast members) I thought it was amazing they were able to do it at all, given the climate and restraints. I made the same comment you did about seeing lost Cast members in the Global Warming sketch, and loved that Thompson, the old faithful cast member, stuck around 30 Rock with Che to hang and keep the show running. Also Fey who seemed to relish sitting in the makeshift Update seat once again. I was surprised Do Not Destroy didn’t have something they could contribute and there were not more taped sketches, will have to mourn the live sketches lost to the virus this season… Probably due to licensing but sad they cut the McCartney/Short repeat sketch short before he took off his vest and walked back to the band to sing Wonderful Christmastime.. My favorite SNL holiday sketches (I understand why they didn’t use it due to recent events) but Baldwin in the Glengarry Glen Christmas sketch is still my #1 favorite, as well as the Hamm and Buble Sketch both of which still make me sincerely laugh, though there are a handful of others.
Don’t get me wrong, I have found plenty of humor in SNL over the years – it’s more that it was probably the first sketch show I ever watched (along with Benny Hill, which, bizarrely as it may sound in 2021, aired on weekend afternoons in syndication), and even when I stopped watching the show, I always felt an attachment to it. When I say it’s not a show I watch as much for comedy as I did some other sketch shows, it’s not meant as an insult. I think there are funnier shows but SNL at its best is a show that covers a lot of different genres and topics, and that’s what I’d rather see from the show and what makes it different, especially in earlier decades. There are still moments I laugh at and enjoy and I try to point those out. I was hoping we’d see something from PDD as well. I think they may not have filmed this week, and the one piece they did have which hasn’t aired yet wasn’t Christmas-related so I guess was never likely to get on.
I predate you with Python and other shows before Hill. I always find a cast member or two I enjoy of the new featured players on SNL. Aidy and Bowen are my two favorites right now, and I think Melissa is completely underused, they can’t seem to find a voice for her. The best thing about the current cast is they know each other so well, like an old timey traveling show of performers. You seem to realize but I don’t think many people do what a monster amount of work it is to have this happen year after year while trying to stay in-front and topical. Even when the host is weak, they figure a way to rally and make it look easy. And LIVE!
Yes – the bonds between the cast are also my favorite part of current SNL (and it does make the show host-proof, which is probably a good thing). If you are interested, PDD put a little video on their Instagram that they filmed during last week. Apparently Martin Herlihy has COVID:
Wow, thank you, appreciate it… I figured there were some active positive players for them to totally gut the cast/crew… I also forget he is the son of SNL writer Tim Herlihy until someone mentions his name.
I share the feeling that it’s admirable that the cast and crew tried to put something together after things fell apart at the last minute, but I think the bit about Lorne and other decision makers clearly being caught flat-footed by this is still the defining aspect of this episode for me. Despite how a lot of people are acting this week, the Omicron variant and the Delta surge were not some out-of-the-blue surprise. The producers either needed to build in some more reliable contingency plans, or they should’ve have been proactive and switched to a remote/pre-taped format considerably in advance of yesterday. They could’ve taped some sketches during rehearsal, they could’ve written a couple sketches for cast members to tape from home, they could’ve booked an alternate studio for the musical guest to perform from, etc. There’s a lot that could’ve been done to make this into something closer to an actual episode instead of a glorified clip show.
I liked it. Let’s be honest, the clips were better than 90% of what the show would have been. I did like the 3 original sketches. Both Pete and Kyle did something different! A Christmas miracle!
I really liked Pete’s Pete in 2054 film as well, and your bringing up Schillervision is very apt. I know the idea was for it to be a Raging Bull reference but it reminded me of early SNL Tom Schiller like that one classic Gilda Radner one that everyone loves. It’s amazing that it was made to be part of a more normal episode because it fit in so perfectly with the weird energy of this strange, maybe strangest ever, episode.You did a good job of describing the context of the episode and how it ended up happening at all, and happeninSg this strange way. This really felt historic to me. Like I called my non-SNL watching friend to describe it to him and he was actually interested. This felt to me like even more of a perfect reflection of the pandemic era. The remote SNL working from home episodes were more controlled and intentional. The chaotic way this episode barely came together and the note of having no idea what’s coming next or when or if this will ever end was a much more accurate depiction of what this era feels like.
Yes, SNL was off during the time New York shut down in 2020. I think they would have shut down as well at that point, if they weren’t already dark, but this time clearly Lorne wasn’t going to do that. I’m still not sure if this was the best idea, but it was absolutely fascinating to watch – to have no Live From New York, no musical guest…it’s one of those we are probably never going to hear the full story of, but I will look forward to what details we do find out.
well said. i live in nyc and like alot of us, i think i caught the omicron (double vaxxed, been trying to get boosted but thats another story), so im going to have to spend x mas away from family and friends in this little box apartment. but ive been an snl watcher my entire life too, so at this point i cant not watch it, i dont know how.
i was completely stiff upper lip and totally handling it until i watched this and heard that dang goodnight song with only the sax and piano, and it just broke me. its crazy how this stupid little show really has become a part of so many peoples lives, possibly by virtue of consistency alone (like you said, i realize that im not totally watching it for the laughs), and the sound of that song with just the two of them was just…. too much.
Thanks for sharing your story. I feel less silly knowing these moments also move other people.
I love the fact that the Global Warming Christmas Special made it to the episode
I’m surprised they didn’t have enough footage from rehearsals and the many cut-for-time sketches to cobble something fresh together
They didn’t do a dress rehearsal of the planned sketches.
You know, I found it strangely comforting, in the way that all Christmas SNL has been comforting to me since I was a kid. Just some nice laughs while it’s snowy and cold outside. Not an ideal show, but not without some merit.
That Global Warming Christmas skit was agony. On the other hand Tom Hanks bracketing it within the current framework of the pandemic brought an odd nostalgia irrespective how frequently off it was.What was that, 1990? Dean Martin inebriated, Sally Struthers a pop-culture touchstone in her hunger campaigns, Chris Farley, the term Global Warming, Crystal Gayle, having Jamie Farr mentioned as a guest. I just wondered how many hundreds of thousands last night had no idea what the references were?I guess you have to be an old. I knew every one. (Lone sax plays while walking inexorably to the light at the end of a tunnel)
I wish Phil Hartman got to do more as his weird, stoic author.
I wish more Phil Hartman period.
I’ll admit I laughed way too much at myself for understanding the Jamie Farr and Sally Struthers jokes.
But what about Tahoe?
I knew who Sally Struthers was from an old episode of South Park. Never heard of Jamie Farr. It still worked and felt disturbingly current.
I mostly remember Struthers from her “Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all so…” commercials where she sounded like she was going to bust out crying the whole time.I also saw a performance of Grease with her in the cast and after the bows they were asking for money for some cause, and she was pushed up front for the plea. It was absolutely excruciating and the whole audience was cringing.
IIRC ‘Jamie Farr’ in 1990 was still an easy punchline for ‘washed-up but amiable celebrity’. Crystal Gayle was an odd choice, and it’s telling that the sketch made fun at the one thing people then remembered her for: her absurdly long hair. I vaguely recall Asimov having a bit of a moment then, possibly some stories/writing about the environmental crisis? But the person who surprised me was Ralph Nader–who would have known that in a decade he’d pretty much be responsible for America’s decline. Telling that they didn’t give him anything to do.
Funnily enough he even had a cameo on SNL during his 2000 campaign. That was the last time.
Nader was an over the top zealot, but he led to many sensible rules, IMHO.
And Farr seemed to know it. His life at that point was basically “hey, you recognize me so I must still be KIND of famous…”
He was there for the monologue, trying to get into the Five-Timer’s Club (“But I’ve hosted the show, I swear!”) so I assume they just threw him in this sketch for the hell of it while he was already there.
I didn’t time it but it felt just unbelievably long for a sketch.
I saw the “Global Warming Christmas” sketch when it first aired and it didn’t seem that much longer than other SNL sketches at the time. (Keep in mind, SNL has run sketches that were two segments long.) I think it’s just in the last 30 years, sketches have gotten shorter and more streamlined.
The cold opens have gotten longer and more dirgelike, while the more experimental (and yes, sometimes bloated and interminable, but sometimes wonderful) lengthy sketches in the main show are much more rare, as is the show having respect for viewers being willing to try new things. Not that the Pete short was new, per se, but I hope they take more of those types of risks by modern SNL standards in future, regarding tone.
I remember the episode when that first aired too, and I was kind of tickled seeing it again for the first time in years. Funny how that sketch seems long to people today when back then it was a pretty standard length.
It was 9 minutes, so it did slog a bit.
That sketch was long as all hell. And it showed how a lot of the references on SNL have always been dated already. Dean Martin’s drunk bit was a 60s 70s thing I think.
Hanks’ Martin parody was pretty much spot on.
He was doing celebrity roasts at that time (or, maybe, a few years earlier), that were showing up on UHF stations a lot, so it wasn’t really that dated.
You’re not that old, AlienJesus — I remember all those people, too. Hell, I even remember DEAN MARTIN PRESENTS THE GOLDDIGGERS summer replacement series, and THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW, too! (Mom was, for some reason, a big fan of his.)“Catherine? Warm up the hot chocolate…”
IIRC it was around the time that, IIRC, ABC did a super cringe-worthy special where Bette Milder plays Mother Nature, who’s rushed to the ER and treated by freaking Doogie Howser and a timelost version of Dana Delany’s character from China Beach while various TV characters from different networks watch the news coverage spouting pro-environmentalist platitudes. This sketch was, IIRC the timing, SNL taking a huge piss on the special.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Earth_Day_Special
I tuned in late and when I saw “Dick in a Box” happening, I started to realize what kind of show this was going to be. It’s sort of interesting that they’re showing their annual Christmas compilation special on Tuesday, so I’d say a number of these clips are gonna show up again on that.
Strangely, even though I’ve definitely watched multiple versions of “SNL Holiday” shows, I’ve never seen them pull out the “Global Warming Christmas Special”. Probably because 1) those shows tend to skew recent (for obvious reasons) and 2) that was a very long sketch.“Dick in a Box”, “Christmastime for the Jews”, and “A Holiday Wish” will probably be there, though. And I’d be shocked if they don’t add the Bear Attack sketch, too.
It’s also a bit jarring to realize they were already making jokes about the concept 30 years ago.
I’m sure they were like, “shit, that’s right, there’s a NINE MINUTE Christmas sketch, get that one in there and eat some time!”
I can appreciate that they dug a bit deeper into their archives for the clips for this show. Classic stuff like Dick in a Box, Christmastime for the Jews and My Wish will show up on compilations for a long time and I actually thought it was weird they were included here, for that reason. I know that SNL has a ton of Christmas sketches (some better than others) and this would have been a great time to pull out the stuff that was not quite good enough for a dedicated best of clip show, but still good or interesting in its own right.
Yeah, I’m not a regular viewer of SNL, so all the bits that weren’t those classics (and that dumb Jimmy Fallon commercial) were totally new to me.
Anyone else think this was Pete Davidson’s farewell sketch?
He’s done about five things that seemed like farewell sketches.
Has he? I can’t think of any that thematically seemed like a “goodbye” sketch.But then, I typically scrub Pete Davidson from my memory after each episode….
Walking in Staten and his Update on the last season finale (I do think he was going to leave at that point and Lorne changed his mind).
Disagree on the ‘Walking in Staten’ pre-tape, but fair point on the final Update last year. I was so caught up in Cecily’s wine-soaked Jeanine Pirro I pretty much forgot about his bit.
If only.
The Global Warming Christmas Special clip broke my heart in every possible way. I remember watching it the first time. I remember when these actors were alive, and I remember the shock I felt when each death was announced. I remember when we thought the world would deal with climate change in a reasonable fashion before we reached the point of no return. I remember when the #MeToo stories broke about Asimov and Sagan.
Happy new year.
One of my all time favorite SNL skits, and not just Christmas. Especially Dean Martin wiping his hands on Crystal Gayle’s hair and the George Hamilton bit (what will happen to Rob Lowe and the two Coreys?!?). Classic!
The reminder of the two Cor(e)ys was yet another heartbreak from that sketch.
When did Sagan get Metoo’d?
One of those things in life that you shouldn’t look up, because you’re going to get disappointed.
I am 52 years old. I remember the first Saturday Night Live, if not from watching it live (I would have been six)I am 55 years old. I remember the first Saturday Night Live and I did watch it live (I was eight). “I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines.”I liked Pete Davidson’s filmed piece too. But it really seemed like a missed opportunity to show that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer revenge sketch from 2018. That was an instant Christmas classic and the first time we got to see what Pete could do with the right material.
Listen, I get that this was eerie as hell, and it certainly felt like March 2020 all over again. But it’s not: yes, we were caught flat-footed by how contagious this is, but vaccinations are keeping it from being seriously dangerous. We’re well past the point where we can get Covid cases down to zero.
Well, we would be if a percentage of the population didn’t let themselves get brainwashed into thinking the vaccine is some liberal ploy.
No we wouldn’t be. Covid isn’t going anywhere just like the flu never went anywhere. Its never going away.
There was a window of time within which the whole thing could have been contained, if not halted.
Sigh, no there wasn’t. Due to the nature of the virus and people being aSymptomatic carriers as well as the virus mutating it was never going to be contained. Unless you mean by contained we permanently shut all travel off and made everyone stay in lockdown forever. Then yeah, it could have been contained.
From the beginning, I thought it would wind up being like the flu in our headspace – you get vaccinated regularly and it sucks but it steadily becomes less fatal and less of an influence on our everyday lives.
Think that’s an issue in New York City? With Hollywood celebrities?
Seeing the data from South Africa (remember that Omicron is been there for more than one month, that vac levels are very low and they had their delta outbreaks) non vaccinated people are (way) safer with Omicron as well. Hope.
Well I certainly feel owned.
To which the appropriate response is “suit yourself.” I don’t know anyone at this point who has much in the way of sympathy for unvaccinated people who get sick. Having both shots and the booster makes omicron no more dangerous than the flu for the vast majority of people. If you’re scared, stay home.
I thought the the whole response was summed up by the cast not wearing masks the entire episode but wearing them during the closing credits.
I get the mask-wearing more when they are around a large group of people (as the goodnights usually have dozens of people). With just 5 people, it stood out more, but I guess they didn’t want to seem even more negligent.
But they also sat next to each other without masks during the show. They also stood next to each other on stage during the show without masks, like in the photo above. It’s just a perfect metaphor for what we’re doing here- everything’s shutting down, cases are sky rocketing and we’re doing stupid performative stuff that does nothing but confuse everyone
Oh I agree. I was talking more about getting the masks at goodnights more during regular episodes. Here, with just 5 people, it did seem performative.
Honestly, until a few weeks ago, we kept telling ourselves we could keep COVID Decepticon out of the U.S., or at least out of New York City.Yeah, that sure worked out, didn’t it? And me driving down there for Christmas….
I would have liked it more if somebody, probably Hanks, had had a six-foot ruler during the Five Timers’ Club bit he kept everybody safe-distanced from him with, or got all Crossing Guard Abusing His Power by keeping everybody six feet apart.Seeing COVID-19 Survivor Tom Hanks be a bit of putz on SNL would be pretty hilarious — something Hanks himself did when he kept his hand just out of reach when Paul Rudd tried to high-five him at the end.
A number of people I know in New York (including myself) have breakthrough cases right now despite getting boostered and it’s quite miserable. They were right to send everyone home. I assume the people who stayed back were the people who tested negative right up until 11:30.
Ugh, that sucks! Sending you lots of positive healing energy.
I’m in Indiana and we’ve had two break through cases at my office after getting thru 2020 and most of 2021 with no cases of Covid at all. Indiana was declared the most un safe place in the country for Covid, so way to go you dumbass hilljacks! Thanks for nothing!
There’s also no real way the country is ever going back to the quasi-quasi-togetherness of March 2020. Most places aren’t going to shut down and a lot of people aren’t going to care about masks or precautions. We’ll just have to get through as best we can.
Or you know they could have cancelled the show. Its just dumb entertainment, its not the Easter Seals marathon for charity. They could have just said “Ok Omicron is bad, lets not take any risks” and shutdown for a while. I’m not sure why everyone is applauding this risk taking or why they think this sketch comedy show is such an important cultural icon that if it fails to air when expected somehow society will fall apart. The self-importance of SNL is just way, way out of control.Shut it down, tell capitalism we care for workers safety far more than the profit incentive of selling commercials. Sadly, America disappoints again with its covid response and we’ll keep failing with new and more powerful strains until we get right what nearly every other nation got right almost two years ago.
No, it is still dangerous because the the willfully unvaxxed are clogging up hospitals which has knock-on effects for the chronically ill and people with non-Covid serious conditions. Plus, breakthrough infections are a thing, as is Long Covid which we still don’t know a ton about. Not to mention the risk to those who cannot get vaxx’d (young children, immunocompromized people). We have to stay vigilant.
Tina: And I just want to confirm that the audience hasn’t heard any of these jokes before.
Hanks: Only the two you blew in rehearsal.
There hasnt been as much complaining about the commercial tie-ins as there should be. The HomeGoods sketch was pretty good, but I cant get past the fact that its an ad for HomeGoods. SNL has such a powerful platform, and in a last minute crisis like last night, it shows that it can scramble and deliver with a big support system of stars and some deep dives into the archives. But the best kind of comedy still needs to satirize the commercial interests, not wink at them.
*wistfully remembers John Belushi’s ad for doughnuts*
I’ve seen criticisms of the product placement element for a few years now, sometimes in ways I can agree with (bitter as that recent Target sketch was, it also felt like product placement), others that I don’t (some people were sure a sketch about two dead prostitutes in a hot tub was product placement because they used a real hotel name). I do get the concerns of how corporate SNL has become for a long time now, especially in that period when they were kissing Jeff Bezos’ ass, but I think it’s something they have had to do to stay on the air.That Aidy and Kate sketch made me zone out so hard I didn’t even realize they were naming a real place.
I’d hardly call it an advertisement. They routinely use real brands in slightly absurd ways, and this was no exception.
I really want to read the “oral history” of the last week behind the scenes at SNL as they had to throw apparently much of a show away and scramble to make something else due to Unicron.
I am hoping that a new update of Live from New York, the massive SNL oral history, is published some time soon.
God, that’s such a good book. I read a lot of autobiographies and oral histories, and Live From New York is like nothing else. I assume they’ll update it again in 2025 for the 50th anniversary. Well, they better.There’ll be so much for them to cover in the ten years after the last edition – mainly the difficulty of trying to make satire when the world is already absurd enough, and them trying to push forward in the midst of a pandemic.
Especially since if you’ve seen most of the show’s run, it’s like having a conversation with friends reminiscing about the show; names, skits, etc.The book those authors did about ESPN was equally enthralling, at least if you’ve ever watched it. Olbermann was apparently every bit as much the pain in the ass his reputation makes him out to be.
I really want to read the “oral history” of the last week behind the
scenes at SNL as they had to throw apparently much of a show away and
scramble to make something else due to Unicron.
A planet-sized evil Transformer was the least of their problems!
Right, don’t blame me for this mess.
you could REALLY see on rudd’s face how bummed he was. can’t blame him, i was probably making a similar face. glad they put something out, but boy this was a disappointment and just goes to show you how long it’s gonna be before we’re ‘post-covid’ in any meaningful way.
It wasn’t what I expected but I still thought they tried their best and glad they were able to safely do a version of the show. I love Rudd, and always happy to see Hanks, Martin, Short show up whether taped or on set. I understand why they didn’t showcase any Baldwin sketches (long tired of Schweddy) but I can never get enough of the Glengarry Glen Christmas sketch, one of the few times Baldwin misreads and stifles a laugh. I could think of several rather than the Global Warming one they chose, though seeing Hartman, Hooks, Farley and some of the lost cast members as well as a younger Hanks as Dean Martin, made me wistful. Does anyone recognize the background “singers” (they were not singing) behind Rudd in The Christmas Sock sketch? I assumed they were crew which happened to be there or maybe band members? I just watched it again and as he stands and sings with that freaky haircut I keep thinking I should know who they are but can’t place any of them?
“ each new variant teaches the world the Greek alphabet, one letter at a time”Well, mostly. . . .
That was not the SNL Episode we wanted but the one we got.
Would have liked a previous season live music performance but that show was what it was.
Lost in all the gloom and doom talk is the heartening reality that a year ago, COVID was taking out people indiscriminately and today, the vast majority of people getting sick are the dumbest, most gullible citizens of our nation and nothing of value is being lost.
This is not true. I was vaccinated and boosted and I got a breakthrough case. Everyone I know has a breakthrough case, actually. Omicron seems to be mild but very capable of getting past barriers.
Are you the vast majority? I had no idea.
Yes, exactly. Here in London too. I was coping OK with having it, as I am triple-jabbed. But hearing that Carlos Marin died today in a Manchester hospital (from Il Divo, 53, looked very healthy until December 6, apparently vaxxed) has made me freak right out.
OP said “taking out.” As in, killing. Or affecting seriously enough that they’re hospitalized. Omicron isn’t doing that. The vaccine was never going to flat-out prevent people from getting Covid, it’s not a magic shield. The vaccine gives your body the tools to fight Covid and make it far less severe of a thing than it otherwise would be. And as of right now, it’s still working unbelievably well in that department.
But presumably you’ve recovered (and I don’t mean this to sounds callous)? I think that’s the point – we’re not talking about pulling hospital ships up next to major coastal cities and patients lined up on gurneys in hallways. It sucks, absolutely, but we’re clearly in a better place today than we were in 2020.
In the Midwest, the National Guard is helping with hospitals and they’re dealing with makeshift morgues.
Severally disappointed they had Steve Martin and Martin Short together but not Selena Gomez. I want to believe they all hang out witch each other now, singing King Tut together while wearing fake arrows on their heads. Then, when they’re done, they’ll look through Instagram and watch moviesTik Tok together.
I really hoped Selena Gomez would walk by, playing on her on her phone and asking who still watches Saturday Night Live these days in a bored voice.
Short said a few months ago that he hopes Selena can host and he and Steve can do cameos (as I don’t think either of them want to host now). He said it would just depend on whether SNL will have room to book them. Selena did a decent job in a little sketch she had when she was MG, so hopefully it can work out if the show comes back live next year.
I was so skeptical when I first saw the ads for Only Murders, but man did she have fantastic chemistry with those two. As for SNL, I don’t think too many people are choosing cross-country travel for work at the moment. Except Hanks, of course, because he’s too polite to say no.
Eh, I appreciate the effort, especially the part about staying up to 5am filming the Davidson piece (which was pretty good btw), but they should have just cancelled it. Nothing they put out was must see. None of our lives are ruined because we didn’t get an SNL Christmas episode this year. If you had enough covid cases to dramatically remake the show last minute, you had enough cases to cancel. No one (reasonably at least) is gonna begrudge you for it.
I expect this was 100% voluntary on the parts of the participants, and can see those who were there believing they owe it to their audience to at least put something out there. Necessary? No. But I appreciate the effort.
That “why are Kenan and I the only cast members here tonight?” joke was funny enough to make up for the lack of a joke swap. (Even if it relies on forgetting Punkie exists.)
People need to start accepting that Covid isn’t going away. There are going to be new strains every year just like there are new strains every year for the flu. Everyone is going to have to get an annual shot and lives are going to be lost every year regardless of what precautions people take.I’m glad precautions were put in place but if having a live studio audience actually provided a large amount of money to SNL you can bet that it would have been different last night. All you have to do is look at the sports world and know that fans generate massive income so fans are let into the buildings.
I think the lack of audience may have been more about how many of the cast and crew might have had COVID. It was too dangerous to expose a large group of people.
No, the cast and crew isn’t anywhere close enough to the audience to be a threat to exposing them to Covid.
The crew can be very close to the audience. The camera operator and those assistants with cables can stand right next to you. Depends where your seat is.
It certainly was not a perfect show, and a definite letdown after spending a week looking forward seeing Rudd and the full cast ring out the year. But it wasn’t a bust, especially considering what they had to deal with. Such is life in the time of Covid.The bits that were prerecorded for last night’s show indicate that it would have been one of the better episodes. Rudd, as always, was willing to whatever he had to to get a laugh. Hopefully he can get another bite at the apple soon.Lorne Michaels must have a Tom Hanks signal on the roof at 30 Rock. It seems like he’s always available to help out when things look dire since the pandemic started.
I’m really hoping they just reschedule Rudd and run the show they’d planned. Don’t know if Charli would still be available, but can’t bring myself to care much about that.
Yeah, I was tuning in for Rudd. I couldn’t care less about who the musical guest was. TBH, I usually opt to use the musical performances as an opportunity to take a bathroom break, refill on snacks and beverages and get ready for Weekend Update. The only time I stick around is when it’s somebody I really want to see.
I don’t begrudge them having to do basically a clip show under the circumstances, but I would have loved some kind of “nothing that’s been on a holiday compilation show within the last five or so years” policy, and treated us to some bits that haven’t been on for a while (or since they first aired). I did appreciate that the “global warming holiday special” thing was kind of one of those, I haven’t seen that in ages. “Chrismastime for the Jews” is great and a classic and all, but it’s always on the regular SNL holiday compilaton that’s on every year already anyway.
I found 10 errors in this article:I write lying on by stomach —> I write lying on my stomachFive-Timer’s —> Five-Timers (2 instances)the runaway joke of “How I was a famous sex symbol for reasons that no one could understand?” —> just fucking anything other than thisgift his former pal, “one of my Oscars.” —> gift his former pal “one of my Oscars.”the best realized sketch —> the best-realized sketchAnytime Aidy and Kate team up —> Any time Aidy and Kate team upthey just, “play clarinet and get into college.” —> they just “play clarinet and get into college.”“Mighty Ducks forever, bitches!,” noted former —> “Mighty Ducks forever, bitches!” noted formerknucklepuck virtuoso, Russ Tyler —> knucklepuck virtuoso Russ Tyler
I bet you’re fun at parties!
And two more!Lousiana —> Louisianato a a masked but aggravated Hanks —> to a masked but aggravated Hanks
Just felt so bad for all involved. Actually— felt bad for all of us. God Bless Us Everyone!! The feeling of it ending keeps getting snatched away.
But five timers club is SNL at peak up-its-own-assness. Nothing says, We are no longer cool but are the thing we used to satirize, than the instituting of a “club” in its own honor. ugh. Kinda surprised that SNL didn’t take this opportunity to air all the cut sketches from this past year and a half rather than previously aired oldies. Oh well. To Better Times.
For some reason SNL has never been interested in airing a lot of their cut pieces – that’s one of the reasons I’m glad some at least show up on Youtube now. There were several they could have put on this time, but I guess they wanted to stick to Christmas only. I have always had mixed feelings about the 5-Timers club stuff for the reasons you mention (it becomes especially smug about when people like Timberlake or Baldwin are involved), but the circumstances took away most of the pomposity last night and it just felt more like a bonding moment.
I hate the 5 timers conceit. It has never ever ever been funny for me. Not even seeing old guests and cast members coming back and having fun can salvage it. I also thought Justin Timberlake was a terrible host who never had one single funny moment and all his videos with Samberg would be better with literally anyone else.
I thouht the 5 time jacket would be a joke.Like the badge would be 4 1/2 or 5ish.They joked about it not being a legit 5 times. I think it would’ve been funny.
It was funny the very first time, implying there’s a secret society complete with lounge made up of people famous enough to have hosted five times (back when the show was half as old). The idea that it’s become an actual thing is just silly.
Kind of disagree in that working with Samberg was the thing that made people actually LIKE Timberlake, in that it helped him shed his old N’Sync era persona and allowed him to finalize reinventing himself as someone you could like.
It was originally a joke, and it was a pretty good joke. But that’s where they should have left it.
MSNBC was talking more about SNL not doing a regular show than it was about Manchin.
(and SNL’s keyboard player, whose name I am sorry not to know) Leon Pendarvis? Also the conductor and musical director? At least, that’s what a single Google search of “who is the piano player on Saturday Night Live” told me.
I would have liked to have seen the sketch from, I think, the late 1970s about the commercialization of Christmas and where one child says something like, “1976, now that was a real Christmas”. Anyone know the sketch I am thinking of? I think it is in black and white.
Wow, I’ve never heard of Christmas Shoes before. That it… painful.I don’t know if it redeems the sketch for me that they were actually parodying something much, much worse. It helps, but don’t think I’d ever want to watch it again.
It’s so bad it’s a parody of itself.
Me neither. I just thought it was a weird, tiresome sketch with the payoff of the mom and the people waiting in line was not worth it. No desire to seek out Christmas Shoes (the internet made me aware of it, that’s good enough) and no desire to rewatch that sketch even with proper context.
Man, what can we say about Tom Hanks? He still continues to seem to be the nicest guy in the world. I feel like there aren’t many stars of his caliber that would appear on this show like he’s just pitching in to help out the gang. I’m also not certain there are two more likable presences in Hollywood than him and Rudd.
Henry Winkler is one contender, even if he’s not quite a Hanks-level star.
The Global Warming sketch was TEN. MINUTES. LONG. Have a weird yet familiar emptiness with the bare cast and crew? Well, don’t forget the world is freezing and burning at the same time!
Tom…you had COVID and could get it again.Why would you still show up? Stupid.
The [Global Warming Christmas Special] sketch did feature right-wing former cast member and global warming denier Victoria Jackson, who remains among us.
Still more proof, if one needed it, that There is No God.::Prays to Isis, Astarte, Tatiana, that this whole mess ends::
Is it OK that I still have an enormous crush on Tina Fey?
Why I’m not a comedy writer possibly: I thought for sure there would be a joke about rhyming names Che and Fey.
I think this might be the first time you could actually hear Lenny Pickett clapping.
I really think the filmed Pete Davidson piece is an instant classic. I love the details (as the nod to Viola Davis), Paul Rudd as the friend and it’s somehow more realistic that Davidson could be like that in a few decades than Tom Hanks was as Dean Martin in one of the old sketches.
“I write lying on by stomach”
hmm… can you do it well though? because…
I love that there are a couple of sports-related links in this article, but neither are to Zombie Deadspin.
my top reason for tuning in to this show (other than my long-lived man crush on Paul Rudd) was to see the Weekend Update anchors read each others jokes, and even without Jost there I thought maybe seeing Tina Fey and Che going at it would be incredible, but alas. The whole effort made me think of Tony Hale’s Forky character on the last Toy Story movie–a quickly cobbled together homunculus made with good intentions.
I don’t understand why they didn’t just rerun a collection of old Christmas themed skits from past years. Why even bother doing a show when there is no cast.
That’s scheduled to run this week.
Good.
Lenny Pickett is a damned national treasure, and deserves all the attention he can get. (And an NYU professor, I think! At least he used to be….)It was a very melancholy show, but given the situation, it was pretty good overall. The Steve Martin bit never gets old for me. (I can’t believe SNL hasn’t had Short on to host more often, too. He’s basically tailor-made for the live-improvish kind of show that SNL is. I think Lorne’s still bitter that the SCTV cast didn’t jump ship to SNL when he was creating it, even though Short wasn’t actually on the show at that point…. Although I think he really just wanted John Candy. But I digress.)
And I’m 52, and started watching SNL when I was seven. (Mid 2nd season or thereabouts.) I remember seeing sketches then that I later saw as an adult, realizing how much flew waaaay over my head at the time…. (Like one where a dildo-shaped spaceship “docks” with a ring-shaped spaceship…. Hey, cool spaceships, says 7-year-old me. Well… um….) But Mr. Bill and Lisa Loobner and such were right up my alley. (I’ve been a night person since time immemorial, and my mother was as well, and I think she let me stay up late just for the company, as my dad was out like a light by 9.) SNL is almost an academic study for me at this point; it’s more like watching a specific kind of history unfold as the years go by vs. something that’s an immediate pop culture entertainment source. I still enjoy it, mind you — but the lousy sketches and bad seasons don’t turn me off in the way that they probably should. I’m just fascinated by how everything plays out, I guess. And it does sort of keep me loosely in touch with That Damn Music The Kids Are Listening To These Days. It was good to see the Eddie Murphy sketch, too. Murphy is the most electrifying comedic talent ever to set foot on that stage. That’s a great sketch to illustrate that, too — it’s really a nothingburger of a sketch, but Eddie grabs focus and commands the stage, making into something memorable by force of will alone. Absolutely brilliant. Imagine if he had had the kind of long-term run that Keenan has had on the show….
Wow, we live in a world where AT LEAST one five-timer killed someone.
Cutting from the Global Warming Christmas Special right to the 30 Rock ice rink reminded me that rich people will always be able to afford cold stuff.
I was just waiting for my favorite SNL Christmas bit of all-time, “I Wish It Was Christmas Today”, but it never came.
I always thought that when Che laughed at his own jokes, it was because he had gotten a reaction from the audience and he was just reacting to that. But here there was virtually no studio audience… and he still laughed at his own jokes. So I guess he just really thinks he’s hysterical.
They should have just aired Mac and Me. 🙂