‘Saturday Night Live’: 5 Great Moments From This Weekend
At Friday night’s “Saturday Night Live: The Homecoming Concert” event, Saturday Night Live alumni Jimmy Fallon quipped, “I actually have two things in common with SNL this year. We both turn 50. And if we’re being honest, we both peaked around 25.”
The truth is that for probably at least forty of the show’s fifty years, people have been saying, “Saturday Night Live isn’t as good as it used to be.” The show’s creator and producer, Lorne Michaels, has probably heard it over and over. The truth is that most every era has had its stars, its great bits and it’s dull skits. As Alec Baldwin joked during a fake sponsor segment during last night’s SNL 50 special, if you’re having trouble sleeping, try “After Update: because nothing puts you to sleep faster than the sketches that air after [ Weekend] Update!” (And that’s not necessarily true: this was one of the last skits of the night when Eddie Murphy guest hosted in 2019.)
Saturday Night Live, of course, has a lot to be proud of: the show’s alumni include John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Jon Lovitz, Nora Dunn, Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Chris Farley, David Spade, Adam Sandler, Norm MacDonald, Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, Tracy Morgan, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, Jason Sudeikis, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Jay Pharoah, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong, among others.
The show has been a huge part of American culture for most of its existence, with its immortal skits, from “The Blues Brothers” to “Domingo.” It’s hosted immortal music performances and parodies; in fact, there’s a new documentary on that: Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music, directed by Questlove, is now streaming on Peacock.
SNL‘s catchphrases frequently enter the lexicon, from Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannadanna’s “It’s always something!” to Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer’s “Delicious Dish” hosts’ “Good times.” Weekend Update hosts Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers’ “Really?” Kenan Thompson’s BET host Diondre Cole’s “What’s up with that?” are two of the most memorable. And who can forget the Behind the Music parody that led to “More cowbell!” That skit was the subject of a full episode of the SNL documentary mini series, Beyond Saturday Night.
Friday night kicked off the weekend celebration with SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert. It continued Saturday with a full airing of the very first episode of Saturday Night Live, from October 11, 1975, featuring George Carlin as host and musical guests Billy Preston and Janis Ian. It wrapped up on Sunday night with the three-hour and fifteen-minute SNL 50 special, which was like SNL itself: it had some great moments, some really cool music performances, and a lot of “meh.” Here were some of the best parts of the entire weekend:
1- The Lonely Island Live Medley featuring Lady Gaga, T-Pain, Bad Bunny and Eddie Vedder
The Lonely Island — aka SNL alumni Andy Samberg with his partners in crime Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer — were the guys behind some of the show’s most iconic music video parodies, including “I’m On A Boat,” “Dick In A Box” and “Lazy Sunday” (the latter of which was one of YouTube’s first viral hits). They packed a bunch of these into a six-minute medley Friday night at the Radio City Music Hall event, with the help of special guests Lady Gaga, T-Pain, Bad Bunny and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder (the latter of whom seemed to blow audience member Anya Taylor-Joy’s mind). The performance is quite NSFW but watch it here.
2- Watching the first episode
Obviously, Saturday Night Live is extremely important to NBC, but still, it was wild to see them air a full episode from fifty years ago on Saturday night. While all the humor doesn’t quite translate to 2025, it was still fun to watch Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and the rest, as well as Andy Kaufman’s immortal “Mighty Mouse” skit. And did you know that Jim Henson’s Muppets debuted on SNL? Scroll through the episode below and check it out.
3- “Black Jeopardy”
“Black Jeopardy” is a classic recurring skit, hosted by Darnell Hayes (played by the show’s longest running castmember ever, Kenan Thompson). The contestants were played by Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Eddie Murphy, with Murphy playing Tracy Morgan. Add that to his list of great impressions. It was also fun to see the return of Tom Hanks’ character Doug to the show. Eddie Murphy and Kenan Thompson were also hilarious in “Scared Straight,” which also featured Will Ferrell, Jason Sudeikis and some of the current cast members.
4- “Close Encounter”
Kate McKinnon was a master of making her castmates break and she was never better than on the “Close Encounter” skits. Here, Jon Hamm and Aidy Bryant are questioning McKinnon, along with Pedro Pascal and Woody Harrelson’s characters about their experiences being abducted. It was pretty incredible and Meryl Streep joining as Kate’s mom just brought it to another level.
5- “Anxiety”
Once again: Andy Samberg! Here, he teams up with current cast member Bowen Yang for an early ’80s new wave-sounding jam about how every Saturday Night Live cast member and the behind-the-scenes staff, has had anxiety and digestive problems. (It was a nice way of including some of the members who didn’t make the show, like Dana Carvey and Bill Hader, not to mention, some of the non-famous SNL staff).
There were plenty of other great moments: you can check most of them out at Saturday Night Live‘s YouTube page.
