50 years: that’s how long Saturday Night Live has been on the air, with the night of that first episode being recently chronicled in the biopic Saturday Night. It goes without saying that such a milestone needs to be commemorated in a huge way, and that’ll happen on the 2025 TV schedule when the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special airs this Sunday. But that’s not enough to celebrate SNL being around for half a century, as Season 50 has also brought in major names like Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney and Chris Rock to make special appearances or host. Evidently Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator, has spared no expense with recruiting this lineup of talent.
In a Vulture piece discussing Michaels’ work on SNL and what will happen to the series when he retires, it’s mentioned that he poured so much money into inviting back SNL “family members,” which also includes Andy Samberg, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Alec Baldwin and Martin Short, that an unnamed NBC executive called up an old colleague to complain about these “exorbitant expenses. This former executive responded:
I told them, ‘Just agree to this; otherwise, Lorne is gonna have to call whoever Lorne calls. Even today, people are confused by the chain of command at NBC. Just look at the org chart: Lorne looms slightly off the chart and above us all.
Logic would dictate that the person who’s running Saturday Night Live ranks below these NBC executives, but this is Lorne Michaels we’re talking about.With the exception of the first half of the 1980s, he’s been leading the charge on SNL and made it into a comedy institution, not to mention been around much longer than most, if not all of these executives. So if Michaels wants to spend a lot of money to bring in so many familiar faces back to SNL Season 50, apparently it’s going to happen, even if he has to make a few of these special calls to get his way.
Along with the aforementioned names, SNL Season 50 also brought in Jim Gaffigan to play Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz during the election season. Also, the episode Martin Short hosted saw him and John Mulaney being joined by Tom Hanks, Paul Rudd, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Emma Stone and Jimmy Fallon for Short’s induction into the Five Timers Club. Lucy Liu, Adam Sandler, Kyle Mooney, Pete Davidson and Lin-Manuel Miranda have also all popped by this season. So yeah, it’s no wonder so much money has been spent lately, and I imagine this will continue happening for the remainder of Season 50.
As for the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special, I could spent a whole other article going over who will appear there, with Sabrina Carpenter being one of the more recent additions. Suffice it to say it will be quite the event, and you can watch it unfold Sunday at 8 pm ET on NBC. You’re also welcome to break out your Peacock subscription to stream any and all of the hilarious sketches that SNL has delivered over the decades to your heart’s content.
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