Last month, NBC aired SNL 50: The Anniversary Special, a three hour tribute to Saturday Night Live, the late-night comedy variety show that has been causing cultural shock waves since 1975.
The Anniversary Special was a fitting celebration of half a century of SNL. If a bit overstuffed, it certainly delivered on promises made. Featuring well over thirty guest stars and musicians, the special touched on the highlights of SNL’s recent past as well as honoring its original players.
It was not a night for risk-taking. At times predictable and repetitive, the show was dominated by SNL’s most popular sketches from the past twenty years. Pete Davidson’s character Chad made a less-than-stellar return for a skit with former cast member Laraine Newman, and Marcello Hernandez’s Domingo gave a similarly uninspired appearance.
The biggest disappointment of the night, however, was “Anxiety”, a new digital short starring comedian Andy Samberg and SNL player Bowen Yang. Though Samberg’s writing partners Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone made brief appearances in the film, its lack of organization in comparison to shorts past implied that perhaps Samberg wrote the sketch alone. Or, that Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone had written the sketch together and it just came out bad.
Weekend Update was certainly the most successful part of the night. Former cast members Cecily Strong, Bobby Moynihan, Fred Armisen, and Vanessa Bayer reprised beloved characters such as Drunk Uncle and Best Friends from Growing Up, but it was Bill Murray who brought the segment a needed acidity with his ranking of the best ever Update anchors.
Though they came in glitzy packaging, the musical performances were rather typical. Tricky to hear and a little awkward, they were sometimes slow but nonetheless impressive and at times profound. The finest performance was by Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard, who gave their rendition of the song Nothing Compares 2 U as a tribute to the late singer Sinéad O’ Connor whose 1992 SNL performance resulted in severe backlash.
Though a memorial segment was conspicuously absent from the show (Tom Hanks subjected the audience to a bait and switch when he introduced “a memorial… to the most controversial sketches in the show’s history”), the evening took a bittersweet turn when original cast member Garrett Morris appeared to preface a 1978 short starring late SNL player John Belushi.
Goodnights were equally bittersweet. Storied SNL creator Lorne Michaels made a rare appearance on camera and exchanged a proud handshake with Martin Short, whose closing address to the cast and crew of SNL was sure to resonate with fans everywhere:
“God knows we love you all!”