Chris Rock returned to Studio 8H last night to host Saturday Night Live for the first time since 2020, and much to the delight of fans, he brought with him an old coworker: Adam Sandler. The A-lister wasn’t billed for the episode, but about halfway through a medical sketch, the patient’s covering was pulled down to reveal it was Sandler. The audience, of course, exploded with excitement, and it wasn’t long before all the cast members were smiling, as the sketch got progressively more ridiculous.
The basic premise involved a surgery. Sandler, who was initially covered, was getting his appendix removed, except Sarah Sherman’s nurse accidentally wrote down gallbladder, leading to Chris Rock’s surgeon removing the wrong organ. She quickly owned her mistake, but it was later discovered one of her airpods fell into Sandler’s chest during surgery. And so on. Eventually, Sandler woke up, and all hell broke loose as he bled all over everyone. You can check out the madness below…
In a weird way, this sketch actually serves as a fitting explanation for why people loved the Adam Sandler and Chris Rock era of SNL so much. During the early 1990s, those two, plus other favorites like Chris Farley and David Spade, brought a lot of goofiness and irreverence to the show. Sure, there were still some political sketches and more serious subjects tackled, but what people remember the most is those guys just having fun with each other on screen.. and a lot of breaking character.
I’m not saying Sandler and Rock are among the worst offenders in the show’s history, especially given Jimmy Fallon exists, but you can point to a lot of early 90s sketches and find people barely keeping it together. It’s nice to add another one to the canon here, as the last half of the sketch is pure madness. First, Sandler can’t seem to get his blood splatter thing to work. Then, after he does, he just goes to town on everyone in the sketch, including Rock who gets blood intentionally shot into his mouth. In perhaps the sketch’s funniest moment, he also calls out Emil Wakim’s unnamed nurse and tells him he’s glad he’s in the skit, even if he doesn’t have a clear role and hopes his parents are proud of him.
Sandler, of course, is just the latest in a long series of nostalgic appearances we have gotten this season to celebrate beloved comedy show’s 50th anniversary. So far this season, we’ve gotten a host of favorites including Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg, who did several election sketches together, and just last week, we got Dana Carvey and David Spade who joined forces for a Church Lady sketch.
That nostalgia will continue rolling next week as Martin Short is the next former cast member who has been tapped to host. He’ll appear alongside Hozier, and I can’t wait to see what surprises might come with them.
