Saturday Night Live is legendary for its intense schedule and chaotic timeline. The brave souls working on the show pitch, write, re-pitch, rehearse, build sets, make costumes, do a full runthrough in front of a live audience and then go live for ninety minutes of television in front of a separate audience. It all starts on Monday morning when they meet the guest host for the first time, and it ends when they go live on Saturday night, whether they’re ready or not.
The cast and crew, even though they complain about it, have adhered to the same basic rigorous schedule for more than fifty years in order to make sure everything gets done, but now and again, forces outside their control get in the way. That happened this week when The United States bombed Iran in the early morning hours on Saturday. Suddenly, the original sketch they prepared for the show’s cold opening, which involved President Trump delivering the State Of The Union, didn’t make sense anymore. It obviously didn’t mention bombing Iran at all since that hadn’t happened when it was written.
The only solution was to write a new sketch, which they did on Saturday. It involved President Trump further explaining his decision to bomb Iran, as well as some thoughts from Secretary Of War Pete Hegseth. It also included a hilarious complaint about how much “fear, rage and chaos” it caused in the SNL writers room when they realized the OG sketch wasn’t going to work. Here’s a direct quote…
It’s to cause immeasurable fear, rage and chaos in the SNL writers room. Those guys were going crazy. They probably had a big State Of The Union address thing they were going to do. Not anymore! Jeremy (Culhane) was in it. Poor Jeremy. He’s got a light show. Put the whole thing in the trash and start fresh. We love that for them.
I have to say, for being pitched, written and executed in less than a day, this week’s cold opening was terrific. As an SNL superfan, of course I loved the glimpse behind the scenes that referenced how much everyone was freaking out about what to do, but even if you throw that out, the sketch got constant laughs throughout its nearly five minute run. It’s got just the right number of jokes, and it has a good sense for when to get off a topic when they’ve mined what they can get out of it.
It helps that James Austin Johnson is so funny as President Trump. I know Alec Baldwin generated way more headlines because of how monstrous and mean-spirited his version was, but Johnson’s more realistic take captures the personality and demeanor of the President so well. He’s able to get laughs with the material, but he’s also able to get laughs with his inflection and creative choices.
Colin Jost is really starting to come into his own too. I’m not surprised they called on him with little notice here. He’s been appearing outside Weekend Update more regularly, and he seems to be getting more confident by the week.
You can check out the sketch everyone is talking about below…
Not surprisingly, the rest of the SNL episode was a ton of fun. Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie took the next step in his meteoric rise by appearing on the pop culture staple, and he rose to the moment, taking on a wide variety of characters including a dude at a bachelor party having way too much fun ice skating, an injured stripper and an upperclass Victorian in a slap fight. He also played Armie Hammer in a sketch cut for time where he claimed Tourette’s Syndrome led to his cannibalism texts.
SNL is live the next two weeks with Ryan Gosling and Harry Styles serving as the upcoming guest hosts. Fingers crossed the show is able to maintain its usual schedule, and we won’t see any desperate morning-of re-writes because of world events getting in the way.
