SNL at 50: Some good laughs and music with great memories

Last night Saturday Night Live celebrated its fiftieth year with their long awaited anniversary show. Some of the bits were good, some not so good— kind of like a regular ninety-minute show. But there was enough to make it memorable so let’s focus on that.

Steve Martin was the perfect choice to give the opening monologue. Yeah, he’s no longer a wild and crazy guy, but he’s still one of the funniest men ever! Google should put “The Gulf of Steve Martin” on its map.

In season two, Paul Simon and George Harrison teamed up to sing “Homeward Bound” together. They recreated the moment with Sabrina Carpenter taking George’s place. She had the funniest line of the night when she told Simon that she wasn’t born in 1976–and neither were her parents.

My favorite skit was Kate McKinnon talking about getting abducted by aliens. It was funny on its own, but Meryl Streep’s cameo as her mother put it over the top.

For me, the best part about SNL has always been Weekend Update. I loved Bill Murray coming on and rating the top ten hosts in Colin Jost’s face.

On to the music:

Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard honoring Sinead O’Connor with “Nothing Compares to You” was the best song of the night. Great vocals and some tasty guitar from Brittany. It was good to see Aubrey Plaza doing the introduction. It’s her first appearance since the recent death of her husband.

It’s easy to complain about the voices or lack of voices of the two Pauls—Simon and McCartney. I don’t care! They’re still Paul F’ing Simon and SIR Paul F’ing McCartney. It’s great that they’re still with us!!

Then there were the poignant moments of the show:

Adam Sandler’s song telling the story of fifty years of SNL was wonderful. He was the right guy to do it. Yeah, some of it was a little too inside stuff, but when his voice cracked when mentioning his late friends Norm McDonald and Chris Farley, ours did, too.

A much more subtle moment was at the closing scene with the entire cast on stage. You had to look closely but Jane Curtain and Laraine Newman held up a photo of Gilda Radner. Oh man, bring on those feels!!

All in all, a pretty great three-plus hours of television. Will there be a sixtieth-anniversary show? I doubt it but SNL has been written off many times over the last five decades and it still survives. See you in 2035!!