logo
‘Saturday Night Live' celebrates 50 years with comedy, music and show's many, many famous friends

‘Saturday Night Live' celebrates 50 years with comedy, music and show's many, many famous friends

The Hill17-02-2025

Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter duetted on Simon's 'Homeward Bound' to open the show, five-decade 'Saturday Night Live' luminary Steve Martin delivered the monologue, and Paul McCartney gave an epic closing to a 50th anniversary special celebrating the sketch institution that was overflowing with famous former cast members, superstar hosts and legendary guests.
The 83-year-old Simon has been essential to 'SNL' since its earliest episodes in 1975, and told the 25-year-old pop sensation of the moment Carpenter that he first performed 'Homeward Bound' on 'SNL' in 1976.
'I was not born then,' Carpenter said, getting a laugh. 'And neither were my parents,' she added, getting a bigger laugh.
McCartney closed with the rarely performed song cycle from the Beatles' 'Abbey Road,' 'Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End,' with its wistful ending, 'the love you take, is equal to the love you make.'
Lil Wayne and Miley Cyrus were among the night's other musical guests, though the show's musical legacy also had its own night with a Radio City Music Hall concert on Friday.
'SNL50: The Anniversary Celebration' aired live from New York, of course, on NBC and Peacock. The pop culture juggernaut has launched the careers of generations of comedians including Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell, who all appeared in early sketches.
And the evening included epic cameos that included Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Keith Richards.
Steve Martin's opening sets tone for 'SNL50,' 'Update' keeps it rolling
Martin, one of the shows most prolific hosts and guests since the first season in 1975, tried to keep it current in the monologue even on a backward-looking night.
Martin said when the show's creator Lorne Michaels only told him he'd be doing the monologue, 'I was actually vacationing on a friend's boat down on the Gulf of Steve Martin.'
He was joined by former 'SNL' luminaries and frequent hosts Martin Short and John Mulaney, who looked at the star-studded crowd full of former hosts in the same Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza that has been the show's longtime home.
'I see some of the most difficult people I have ever met in my entire life,' Mulaney said. 'Over the course of 50 years, 894 people have hosted 'Saturday Night Live,' and it amazes me that only two of them have committed murder.'
Later, on the night's 'Weekend Update,' anchor Colin Jost said there are so many former hosts and musical guests that wanted to see the show that many had to be seated in a neighboring studio and some had to watch 'from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn' as a photo of Sean 'Diddy' Combs appeared.
Martin took a jab at the always-difficult-to-wrangle Bill Murray in his monologue.
'We wanted to make sure that Bill would be here tonight,' Martin said, 'so we didn't invite him.'
Murray appeared on 'Weekend Update' to rank the show's anchors since they began with Chevy Chase. He poked at the whiteness of the group by first ranking its Black anchors, a list of just one, current co-anchor Michael Che.
The extravaganza came after months of celebrations of 'Saturday Night Live,' which premiered Oct. 11, 1975, with an original cast that included John Belushi, Chase and Gilda Radner.
It's become appointment television over the years as the show has skewered presidents, politics and pop culture.
'It is a honor and a thrill to be hosting weekend update for the 50th and if it was up to our president final season of SNL,' Jost said.
The show had its typical ending, with all involved looking exhilarated and exhausted on the studio stage. This night it was so crowded with luminaries it looked like it might break. Led by Short, they all applauded in tribute to Michaels, who created the show and has run it for 45 of its 50 years.
Cameos and memorials
Alec Baldwin, the show's most frequent host with 17 stints, appeared to introduce an evening of commercial parodies, seven months after his trial was halted and an involuntary manslaughter charge was dropped in the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Aubrey Plaza made one of her first public appearances since the January death of her husband when she introduced Cyrus and Howard's performance.
The 87-year-old Nicholson was once a constant in the front rows of the Oscars and Los Angeles Laker games, but is rarely seen out anymore. He introduced his 'Anger Management' co-star Adam Sandler, who sang in his signature style about the show's history. He gave a roll-call of cast members, giving special attention to several who have died, including his friends Chris Farley and MacDonald along with Radner, Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman.
It ended with, 'six years of our boy Farley, five of our buddy Norm.'
The show didn't have a formal 'in memoriam' section, though it pretended to when 10-time host Tom Hanks came out somberly to mourn 'SNL characters and sketches that have aged horribly.'
A montage began with the late Belushi's 'Samurai' character. The word 'Yikes' appeared on screen in a sketch that included Mike Myers and a young Macaulay Culkin in a bathtub. A 'body shaming' label appeared over the beloved sketch of Farley and the late Patrick Swayze as Chippendale's dancers, and 'slut shaming' appeared over one of the show's earliest, catchphrases, Dan Aykroyd saying 'Jane, you ignorant slut' to Jane Curtin. The current-day Aykroyd was a notable absence.
The oldest former cast member, 88-year-old Garrett Morris, appeared to introduce a film that showed the whole original cast.
'I had no idea y'all that I would be required to do so many reunion shows,' he said.
Sketches and bits jam-packed with former cast and hosts
The first sketch featured a mash-up of former cast members and hosts. Fred Armisen hosted a 'Lawrence Welk Show' that featured Ferrell as Robert Goulet.
Former hosts Kim Kardashian and Scarlett Johansson — Jost's wife — gave an updated version of the elegant singing Maharelle Sisters with former cast members Ana Gasteyer and Wiig, who provided the traditional punchline 'And I'm Dooneese' with a balding head and creepy, tiny doll arms.
It was followed by 'Black Jeopardy,' hosted by the show's longest running (and still current) cast member, Kenan Thompson, who called the game show the only one 'where every single viewer fully understood Kendrick's halftime performance.'
It showcased many of the show's most prominent Black cast members through the years including Tracy Morgan and Murphy, doing a Morgan impression.
'Big Dog gonna make some big money!' Murphy-as-Morgan shouted.
Streep walked on as the mother of McKinnon's constant alien abductee Miss Rafferty, with the same spread legs and vulgar manner.
Streep's fellow all-time-great actor Robert De Niro paired with Rachel Dratch in a 'Debbie Downer' sketch with its traditional trombone accompaniment.
Former cast member Amy Poehler and former lead writer Tina Fey, who partnered as 'Weekend Update' anchors, led a Q-and-A with audience questions.
Ryan Reynolds stood, and they asked him how it's going.
'Great, why?' he said defensively. 'What have you heard?'
Reynolds and wife Blake Lively, sitting next to him, have been locked in a heated legal and media battle with her 'It Ends With Us' director and co-star Justin Baldoni.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Adam Driver, Cher, Bad Bunny, Peyton Manning and Richards were also featured in the bit.
Poehler also paired with Rudolph for a revival of their mock talk show 'Bronx Beat,' that featured Mike Myers as his mother-in-law-inspired, Streisand-loving character 'Linda Richman.'
'Look at you, both of you, you look like buttah,' Myers said.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

13 of the late Brian Wilson' s finest songs to revisit
13 of the late Brian Wilson' s finest songs to revisit

Yahoo

time21 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

13 of the late Brian Wilson' s finest songs to revisit

Brian Wilson's death on Wednesday at the age of 82 heralds an end to one idea of Southern California — as the temperate paradise of ascendant Americana. Exuberance and dreaminess, writerly sophistication and technical ambition, drugs and madness: Wilson's exquisite craft captured all of it, with his band the Beach Boys leaving behind a singularly inventive and exultant body of work, one that scripted and embodied California to the world. His vast catalog of incomparable achievement also contained thwarted hopes and despair amid his drug abuse and mental illness. It should be revisited in its full range today. These are a few of his hallmark accomplishments as a writer, arranger and performer. Surfer Girl (1963)Unbelievably, impossibly the first single that Brian Wilson ever wrote. So sophisticated and delicate in its moon-eyed teenage passions, full of artful melodic moves bolstered by the pure-water harmonies that would define the group. The song that set the template for a SoCal subculture, and a band to eventually rival the Beatles. In My Room (1963)Perfectly captures the loneliness and sanctity of young solitude over a lovely doo-wop arpeggio. It's a bracingly vulnerable track for a boy band to write in any era of masculinity. Warmth of the Sun (1964)What a beautiful composition to come right in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Soaked with loss, redeemed by those radiant chord changes showing Wilson's escalating ambitions as a writer, here with Mike Love. Don't Worry Baby (1964)Riffing off the Ronettes' hit the year before, this early cut served double duty as a sincere portrait of romantic comfort and safety, and a reassurance for Wilson's own insecurities as a performer on stage and in life. The regal vocal here proved it worked. Please Let Me Wonder (1965)An absolute swoon. Wilson was ramping up to the sonic inventions of 'Pet Sounds,' but this era-transitional single captured the old lovelorn magic and dreaminess in an increasingly robust arrangement. California Girls (1965)Written with Love after the Beach Boys' first European tour, this hallmark single is diabolical in its sincerity and craftsmanship, a gobsmacked appreciation for all the world's women that probably did as much to build the Golden State's global reputation as Hollywood and the microchip. Caroline, No (1966)It's hard not to pack this list with songs from 'Pet Sounds,' but this one stands out for its poignancy about time passing and the grind of life changing a lost love. Wilson regarded it as one of his best, and with its striking instrumental palette of harpsichord and flutes, it's easy to agree. God Only Knows (1966)From the opening bait-and-switch lyric to the quiet, tidal shifts in tone and that regal outro, it may be the emblematic Beach Boys song. It will never lose its potency as a crowing statement of devotion. Go get married to it, or ponder its existential desperation. Good Vibrations (1966)Probably the definitive Beach Boys single in that it has absolutely everything they're beloved for — compositional genius, technical invention and immaculate performances spliced from four different studios into one incandescent, emblematic single. Darlin' (1967)The Beach Boys were in decline by 1967 — in health and hipness alike. Wilson revamped a song he wrote with Mike Love (for what became Three Dog Night). Now as a rollicking horn-driven soul number (with a great vocal from Carl Wilson), it became an unexpected highlight of this era for the band. Cabin Essence (1969 and 2004)A core piece of the mangled, unfinished 'Smile' sessions, the song took Wilson four decades to get right and finally release as part of his own effort to finish the LP. It's packed with ideas from all over the American songbook — Aaron Copland and western folk, run through with Wilson's own cracked impressionist view of life on the rails. Surf's Up (1971)'A blind class aristocracy, back through the opera glass you see / The pit and the pendulum drawn.' An elegy for the hopeful '60s, with a wry title that lays the band's old sunny optimism in the grave. Til I Die (1971)A wrenching composition evoking a declining Wilson's hopelessness and despair, all the more striking for its exuberant production. It feels even weightier on today of all days — 'How deep is the ocean, I've lost my way.' Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

New Doc Explores How Julia Sweeney's ‘SNL' Favorite Pat Became a Complex Nonbinary Icon
New Doc Explores How Julia Sweeney's ‘SNL' Favorite Pat Became a Complex Nonbinary Icon

Yahoo

time31 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

New Doc Explores How Julia Sweeney's ‘SNL' Favorite Pat Became a Complex Nonbinary Icon

Julia Sweeney's popular Saturday Night Live character Pat gets their plaudits (and some criticism) as a gender non-conforming pioneer in a new clip from the upcoming documentary, We Are Pat, premiering exclusively on Rolling Stone. Sweeney played Pat throughout her run on SNL in the early Nineties and even got to star in a spin-off film, It's Pat. The inscrutability of Pat's androgyny was pushed to comedic extremes, effectively offering prominent, yet thorny representation for gender non-conforming people on television long before the term 'nonbinary' was being widely used. More from Rolling Stone USC's SoCal VoCals Are Pitch Perfect in 'Just Sing' Documentary Trailer See 'SNL' Spoof Mike Myers' Infamous Kanye West Moment in Elevator Sketch 'SNL': Watch Bad Bunny Perform 'NUEVAYoL,' 'PERFuMITO NUEVO' We Are Pat director Ro Haber tells Rolling Stone in an email they 'wanted to make a film about transness that had humor at the heart of it,' and kept coming back to their complicated feelings about Pat. 'Why am I laughing at something that's meant to laugh at me? Why do I love Pat? Is Pat a nonbinary icon or a transphobic trope of yesteryear?' Haber continues. 'In exploring these questions, it was really important that the film embraced a spirit of curiosity and conversation rather than cancel culture and judgment.' The new clip opens with Karam Ann, a professor of TV studies, noting the prescience of Pat and how the relatively new discussion around nonbinary identity and the use of they/them pronouns has 'reanimated Pat from the grave.' Actor and filmmaker River Gallo, who is nonbinary, adds, 'What's interesting to me about being nonbinary, and the definition of nonbinariness, is it's saying you're not these two things. It's not really definable but only by what it isn't. It's interesting thinking of Pat in those ways.' We Are Pat will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, June 8. It's set to feature interviews with an array of queer and trans comedians and writers, including Molly Kearney, Esther Fallick, Abby McEnany, Pink Foxx, and Roz Hernandez. Sweeney also partook in the film, as did her SNL co-star Kevin Nealon. Haber says one of the most profound things they learned while making the film was from Sweeney, who created Pat while grappling with her 'own gendered pressure as a woman trying to make it in the Ninetes boys club of comedy and SNL.' 'Pat grew out of familial and societal expectations of femininity that were placed on Julia during that time, and Pat was something of an escape for her,' Haber says. 'In the film, she says, 'It was actually a joy to be Pat because I got to have a break from having to be a girl too.' That sense of reacting to a gender expectation placed on you felt really relatable to the comics in the film and me.' { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 1, }, pmcCnx: { singleAutoPlay: 'auto' } } }, playerId: "d762a038-c1a2-4e6c-969e-b2f1c9ec6f8a", mediaId: "4665abb0-57e9-4e09-a93a-fa846cda00cb", }).render("connatix_player_4665abb0-57e9-4e09-a93a-fa846cda00cb_2"); }); Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best 70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century

13 of the late Brian Wilson' s finest songs to revisit
13 of the late Brian Wilson' s finest songs to revisit

Los Angeles Times

time37 minutes ago

  • Los Angeles Times

13 of the late Brian Wilson' s finest songs to revisit

Brian Wilson's death on Wednesday at the age of 82 heralds an end to one idea of Southern California — as the temperate paradise of ascendant Americana. Exuberance and dreaminess, writerly sophistication and technical ambition, drugs and madness: Wilson's exquisite craft captured all of it, with his band the Beach Boys leaving behind a singularly inventive and exultant body of work, one that scripted and embodied California to the world. His vast catalog of incomparable achievement also contained thwarted hopes and despair amid his drug abuse and mental illness. It should be revisited in its full range today. These are a few of his hallmark accomplishments as a writer, arranger and performer. Surfer Girl (1963)Unbelievably, impossibly the first single that Brian Wilson ever wrote. So sophisticated and delicate in its moon-eyed teenage passions, full of artful melodic moves bolstered by the pure-water harmonies that would define the group. The song that set the template for a SoCal subculture, and a band to eventually rival the Beatles. In My Room (1963)Perfectly captures the loneliness and sanctity of young solitude over a lovely doo-wop arpeggio. It's a bracingly vulnerable track for a boy band to write in any era of masculinity. Warmth of the Sun (1964)What a beautiful composition to come right in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Soaked with loss, redeemed by those radiant chord changes showing Wilson's escalating ambitions as a writer, here with Mike Love. Don't Worry Baby (1964)Riffing off the Ronettes' hit the year before, this early cut served double duty as a sincere portrait of romantic comfort and safety, and a reassurance for Wilson's own insecurities as a performer on stage and in life. The regal vocal here proved it worked. Please Let Me Wonder (1965)An absolute swoon. Wilson was ramping up to the sonic inventions of 'Pet Sounds,' but this era-transitional single captured the old lovelorn magic and dreaminess in an increasingly robust arrangement. California Girls (1965)Written with Love after the Beach Boys' first European tour, this hallmark single is diabolical in its sincerity and craftsmanship, a gobsmacked appreciation for all the world's women that probably did as much to build the Golden State's global reputation as Hollywood and the microchip. Caroline, No (1966)It's hard not to pack this list with songs from 'Pet Sounds,' but this one stands out for its poignancy about time passing and the grind of life changing a lost love. Wilson regarded it as one of his best, and with its striking instrumental palette of harpsichord and flutes, it's easy to agree. God Only Knows (1966)From the opening bait-and-switch lyric to the quiet, tidal shifts in tone and that regal outro, it may be the emblematic Beach Boys song. It will never lose its potency as a crowing statement of devotion. Go get married to it, or ponder its existential desperation. Good Vibrations (1966)Probably the definitive Beach Boys single in that it has absolutely everything they're beloved for — compositional genius, technical invention and immaculate performances spliced from four different studios into one incandescent, emblematic single. Darlin' (1967)The Beach Boys were in decline by 1967 — in health and hipness alike. Wilson revamped a song he wrote with Mike Love (for what became Three Dog Night). Now as a rollicking horn-driven soul number (with a great vocal from Carl Wilson), it became an unexpected highlight of this era for the band. Cabin Essence (1969 and 2004)A core piece of the mangled, unfinished 'Smile' sessions, the song took Wilson four decades to get right and finally release as part of his own effort to finish the LP. It's packed with ideas from all over the American songbook — Aaron Copland and western folk, run through with Wilson's own cracked impressionist view of life on the rails. Surf's Up (1971)'A blind class aristocracy, back through the opera glass you see / The pit and the pendulum drawn.' An elegy for the hopeful '60s, with a wry title that lays the band's old sunny optimism in the grave. Til I Die (1971)A wrenching composition evoking a declining Wilson's hopelessness and despair, all the more striking for its exuberant production. It feels even weightier on today of all days — 'How deep is the ocean, I've lost my way.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store