SNL50 celebration only dances around the sketch show’s lasting legacy

Open this photo in gallery:

In Jason Reitman’s 2024 film Saturday Night, the director dramatizes the 90 minutes leading up to Saturday Night Live’s first episode in 1975. It’s a frantic master class in pacing with multiple hit-or-miss moments, quite like the sketch series he studies. But there’s one key moment toward the end when Lorne Michaels, played by fellow Canadian Gabriel LaBelle, describes the romanticism of SNL. Of how it captures the late-night vibes of an iconic city, led by the unpolished but cutting Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

It was that tone SNL50: The Anniversary Special attempted to recreate on Sunday night with a three-hour special commemorating the series’ five-decade legacy. Dozens of alumni, guests and musicians filled 30 Rock’s legendary Studio 8H for a chaotic night of musical performances, clip shows and sketches featuring new and returning characters. It too had a poignant moment toward the end, during a bar scene featuring the return of Rachel Dratch’s Debbie Downer.

As Debbie took the bubbles out of Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore and Ayo Edebiri’s celebration, a straw-drinking Robert De Niro was having none of it.

“We’re all walking landfills,” Debbie said of the microplastics in the straw. “Odds are they’ve already taken up residence in your testes.”

“Deborah, I’m going to talk now, and you’re going to shut it,” De Niro responded. “I do not appreciate this conversation. I don’t want to talk about plastic in my balls. I came here tonight to get a little frigging break from our world right now, which is like living in a full diaper.”

It was an accurate sentiment that reflects how many people are feeling these days. And it certainly mirrored Michaels’s fictional feelings in the movie. But in that film, even Michaels was unsure what the sketch series would be once it debuted. As it turned out, raw comedians showing the ugly sides of themselves and their egos was part of the winning material. So too was the biting social commentary that solidified the show’s status over the years.

SNL50 showcased none of that, deferring instead to a string of sketches designed to evoke nostalgia from more current viewers. There were few political characters, no mention of the most viral sketches, and even the surviving original players were notably absent. Dan Aykroyd didn’t attend, while Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin were relegated to the audience.

In the final scene before Paul McCartney’s closing performance, Garrett Morris appeared briefly to introduce John Belushi’s 1978 short, Don’t Look Back in Anger. It was a morose moment that featured him visiting the graves of his fellow co-stars, and played as depressing rather than funny.

Meanwhile, Laraine Newman starred in a bit in which she visited her former stomping grounds, only to come face-to-face with Pete Davidson’s Chad character. It was a meeting of the old and new(ish) guards that was equally sad because it highlighted just how far the series has fallen.

Where have the boundary-pushing sketches and the shocking moments gone? This show has always been cyclical, as good as its current writers and stars. But on the 50th anniversary, there weren’t enough of the good old moments that even younger generations are familiar with.

There was little political commentary, with the exception of Steve Martin calling ICE on Martin Short or Tom Hanks briefly reprising his MAGA-supporter Doug character during the Black Jeopardy sketch.

Meanwhile, Martin, Short and Eddie Murphy returning to the stage were highlights, but they participated in new material rather than revisiting the past. One of the best moments of the night came during Weekend Update, when Bill Murray joined Colin Jost, Michael Che and Seth Meyers to deliver his own Top Hosts moment.

In a nod to the humour that used to play on this series, Murray skewered his co-stars, pointed out the desk’s historical lack of diversity and ripped on Chevy Chase.

“Next up, Cornelius Crane Chase, who we’ve all come to know as Conny,” Murray said. “Let’s face it. Weekend Update would simply not exist without him, so it would be wrong to have him listed anywhere but … No. 4.”

It got more laughs than Bobby Moynihan’s Drunk Uncle, Cecily Strong’s Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party, or Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer playing smack-talking Canadian “friends” of Michaels. And once again the juxtaposition of generations was hard to ignore.

Then there were the moments that just didn’t hit at all. John Mulaney’s Hot Dogs and Heroin sketch, which revisited New York through decades, might have been a good idea on paper but it fell flat with Davidson and David Spade at the helm. The best part about Andy Samberg and Bowen Yang’s Digital Short celebrating anxiety was the 1980s-inspired costumes. And the wedding sketch with Sabrina Carpenter and Pedro Pascal was cringe-worthy at best.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler reuniting was briefly joyous, but their audience Q&A was what they eventually called it out as: an excuse to highlight some of the stars in the audience who they just couldn’t fit into the show. The Bronx Beat revival with Poehler and Maya Rudolph spent too much time with Miles Teller when it could have just stuck to the Coffee Talk crossover with Mike Myers’s Linda Richman. Although who wasn’t hoping that Dana Carvey would have stopped by to reprise Wayne’s World with his former co-star or at the very least, Church Lady?

When the special did clip packages, it did a better job of highlighting what made the series so successful to begin with. The physical comedy package showcased the best of Belushi, Molly Shannon and frequent guest Melissa McCarthy, while the cancel culture clip (introduced by Hanks) reminded everyone how well the show has historically pushed boundaries.

Throughout the three hours there were, at least, some highlights, including Will Ferrell’s return as Robert Goulet and Kate McKinnon bringing back the X-rated alien sketch. Woody Harrelson was another highlight in the latter, but it was Meryl Streep playing the mother to McKinnon’s character who, no surprise, stole the show.

If the goal was to celebrate and bring the feels, it was Adam Sandler’s musical montage to past stars that won the show and earned a standing ovation from the crowd. In fact, the night’s music was the most memorable part, from Sabrina Carpenter and Paul Simon’s epic performance of Homeward Bound to Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard paying homage to Sinéad O’Connor’s controversial SNL appearance with a rendition of Nothing Compares 2 U. Then there was Lil Wayne and The Roots (introduced by Dave Chappelle in a very brief cameo), who transformed the stage into a downright party.

As a culmination of five decades, SNL50 failed to bring the nostalgia or highlight the true legacy of the Not Ready for Primetime Players. But if it was trying to deliver a more polished, celebrity-filled afterparty that made you forget the real world for a few brief hours, I suppose it hit the mark.