Fifty years is a long time. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from large portions of SNL50: The Anniversary Special, the much-hyped celebration of the long-running sketch show that aired in prime time last night. SNL50 was meant to commemorate the program, created and executive-produced by Lorne Michaels, for achieving five decades of cultural relevance. But the evening’s rundown suffered from a severe case of recency bias, with sketches that were more inclined to play it safe than honor the show’s extensive, complicated, and fascinating history.

With a couple of notable exceptions, the three-hour special primarily revived recurring segments from the past 20 years. Kristen Wiig brought back Dooneese, the bizarre young woman with doll hands who performs with her sisters on The Lawrence Welk Show; she debuted the character in 2008. This time, Dooneese’s sisters were played by Ana Gasteyer and two celebrity guests, Kim Kardashian and Scarlett Johansson; Will Ferrell dusted off an old impression to join them as the crooner Robert Goulet. Kate McKinnon, who left the show in 2022, returned as Colleen Rafferty, a woman who is constantly abducted and exploited by aliens. Rafferty was joined by her mother, played by Meryl Streep—making her first-ever SNL appearance—but the sketch didn’t deviate much from past iterations.

The most overly familiar section featured the pop star Sabrina Carpenter participating in a version of the viral “Domingo” sketch, which debuted when Ariana Grande hosted this past October. Grande’s rendition hinged on a parody of Carpenter’s hit song “Espresso”; Carpenter returned the favor for hers by reworking “Defying Gravity,” from Wicked, the film adaptation of which Grande recently starred in. The third take on the premise in four months, the spot was among the most glaring moments when the night seemed like a celebration less of the entire show than of its catchiest contemporary material.

The selections were also at odds with the rest of the storytelling that has surrounded Season 50, which seemed to trawl SNL’s deep archives. In the lead-up to yesterday’s event, a wave of documentaries emphasized just how much history the show has encompassed. The four-episode docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night featured sketches and cast members from across the show’s entire run; each installment recalled an aspect or era of the show in detail. The excellent film Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music, co-directed by the Roots drummer Questlove, was a deep dive into the series’ relationship with its musical guests, including the punk band Fear, who made a controversial appearance in 1981, as well as the singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, who infamously tore up a picture of the pope onstage. It did a great job of showing the wide corners of culture that SNL has touched—a key theme of the overarching anniversary project.

Last night’s special had a comparatively narrow focus, prioritizing the characters and celebrities that many younger viewers would recognize. But even when such a major name as Mike Myers reprised his popular “Coffee Talk” character Linda Richman, originated in the early 1990s, it was in the context of a much more recent bit: Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph’s “Bronx Beat,” from the late 2000s. Some of these more contemporary sketches offered surprising twists on their formulas, however. In “Black Jeopardy,” Eddie Murphy pulled out a perfect impression of Tracy Morgan—while standing next to Tracy Morgan. The sketch demonstrated the veteran comedian’s prodigious talents, which we see all too rarely these days; it was the kind of showcase I expected more of from a celebrity-filled spectacle like SNL50.

Meanwhile, the latest edition of John Mulaney’s New York–themed musical sketch toured the past five decades of the city. It was a brilliant send-up, as the entries in this recurring series tend to be; a highlight was Nathan Lane, the original voice of The Lion King’s Timon, as a 1980s financier singing “Cocaine and Some Vodka” to the tune of “Hakuna Matata.” Mixing Disney with hard drugs is the sort of edgy comedy that SNL has catalyzed at its best, and the satire worked superbly here.

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These sketches played like a greatest-hits reel of the past 15 years or so, but the special’s more nostalgic bits got to the root of SNL’s uniqueness as a TV institution. The 10-time host Tom Hanks emerged to set up an “In Memoriam” segment—not for the deceased, but for all the gags that had aged poorly. (Categories included “ethnic stereotypes,” “sexism,” “sexual harassment,” and “gay panic.”) It was somewhat cringeworthy, but also bracingly self-aware. While the majority of the night’s material was expected hagiography, the pointed self-critique was a sober reminder that a lot of SNL does not hold up. (The subsequent “Scared Straight” sketch, which resorted to some of those same gay-panic jokes, was an unfortunate juxtaposition.)

Some of the other effective moments were ones that looked back almost plaintively. Adam Sandler—introduced by the actor Jack Nicholson, in a rare appearance—played an original song that was so filled with genuine love for the studio and its history, it was hard not to be moved. The comedian himself seemed to tear up when mentioning two of his friends and former castmates, Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald, both of whom have died.

And, speaking of death, no segment of SNL50 was more poignant than the original cast member Garrett Morris presenting “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” a 1978 short film by the former staff writer Tom Schiller. The black-and-white clip featured the late John Belushi, dressed as an old man, walking around a graveyard memorializing his co-stars with goofy, sardonic epitaphs; Belushi, of course, preceded most of them in death, giving the comedy a somber tone. This was the kind of odd, even morbid artifact that SNL has accumulated in spades over the years—and the 50th-anniversary celebration could have benefited from digging up more of them.

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