admin“Live from New York it’s Saturday Night” are the iconic words that always kick-off an American comedy staple.
And Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake were lucky enough to utter that iconic phrase during a cold open musical segment for Saturday Night Live’s (SLN) 40th anniversary show.
The three-and-a-half hour special aired on NBC on Sunday night as many of the programme’s impressive roster of alums returned back to famed Studio 8H to celebrate four decades of the show
Everyone who has ever been an SNL regular, guest host, musical guest or behind-the-scenes creative force was invited and the often collaborators Fallon and Timberlake made several references to the most famous sketches from the shows tenure on NBC.
They began with a rap routine set to the instrumental of Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg’s famous “Lazy Sunday” hip-hop song and making reference to D*** In A Box, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, The Blues Brothers and several of the programme’s staples.
At different points in the musical number it was interrupted by Rachel Dratch and later by Molly Shannon in her famous Superstar Catholic school girl get-up.
They end the musical segment with a more traditional Broadway style number before uttering the iconic phrase: “Live from New York it’s Saturday night,” effectively kicking off the show.
After the opening credits rolled, Steve Martin came out for a monologue as he joked: “Tonight is like an enormous high school reunion, a high school that is almost all white.”
He was later joined by Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Melissa McCarthy, Chris Rock, Peyton Manning, Miley Cyrus and Billy Crystal.
Miley may have looked out of place as she donned a racy chained top but she did have a shining comedy moment during the segment.
The 22-year-old songstress made a joke about hosting the show once as she said: “I got paid twice . . . 400 bucks each time, oh yeah, it’s big bucks here at SNL.”
The last surprise appearance during the opening monologue came from Paul McCartney and Paul Simon who played an acoustic version of “I’ve Just Seen A Face”. Martin then introduced a series of clips.
Shortly after the video package, Dan Aykroyd came out as a salesman for a fish blender called the Super Bass-O-Matic 2150 in one of the first traditional sketches of the night.
It was later followed up by fan-favourite sketch through the 9os to early 2000, “Celebrity Jeopardy”, in which Will Ferrell played game show host Alex Trebek.
The original celebrity guests contestants spoofed included Sean Connery (played by Darrell Hammond), Justin Bieber (Kate McKinnon) and Tony Bennett (Alec Baldwin).
The typical hilarity of the fake game show ensued as there were special appearances by even more spoofed A-listers including: Burt Reynolds (Norm Macdonald), Christoph Waltz (Taran Killam), Matthew McConaughey (Jim Carrey) and a short impression of Bill Cosby (Keenan Thompson).
Two of the current cast members Pete Davidson and Leslie Jones come out to introduce a video package of auditions including comedians who never made it on the cast like Jim Carrey, Colbert, Zach Galifiankis, Kevin Hart and Andy Kaufman.
Robert DeNiro came out to introduce a video package dedicated to New York City, where the show has aired from for 40 years.
Keith Richards follows up by introducing Paul McCartney who performed “Baby I’m Amazed” in the first musical performance of the night.
One of the more surprising appearances came from Jack Nicholson who has never hosted the show before.
The “Shining” actor introduced a video package of political based sketches as he said: “When SNL started, in 1975, the last helicopter had just flown out of Vietnam . . . New York City was broke and respect for authority was at an all time low.”
Another new sketch was shown featuring many of the stars from the show in the past decade portraying a dramatic Southern California family led by the likes of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader.
Special appearances were made by Bradley Cooper, Kerry Washington, Taylor Swift who tried putting on their best “Valley” accents poking fun at the LA natives. – Daily Mail
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