“Saturday Night Live” (SNL) celebrated their 50th year with a three hour long special filled with popular past sketches featuring pop culture and even political satire.
Airing on Feb. 16, the anniversary episode attracted fans who supported the show sometime during these fifty years. On Sunday night, a record breaking number of 15 million fans tuned in to commemorate the comedy from a half a century of SNL.
RCHS History teacher, Valerie Clay, watches SNL and shows occasional SNL skits to her classes that tie into instruction. Clay shared why she thought the 50th anniversary was special.
“I loved how the 50th Anniversary special was able to honor all of the past cast members. My favorite part was Adam Sandler’s song, both funny and emotional,” Clay said.
The episode remembered the history of its seasons and honored cast members who made the show possible.
Freshman Maeve McGrath doesn’t watch SNL every week, but also tunes in sometimes.
“I typically watch it when I’ve heard about a sketch that was particularly funny,” McGrath said.
Whether people watch SNL regularly or they watch because someone told them a funny sketch aired in an episode, this comedy show has become popular over its 50 seasons. In a poll sent out to students, only about seven people said they watched SNL on a regular basis. A majority of students prefer to watch certain skits on social media instead of watching the entire episode each Saturday.
The 50th anniversary had a mixture of past skits and new skits to feature the SNL cast, as well as many celebrities, including Emma Stone, Miley Cyrus, Ryan Reynolds, Tom Hanks, and Adam Sandler. Female pop singer, Sabrina Carpenter, was also featured several times throughout the episode and brought one particular popular sketch to life.
In a previous episode of SNL, Ariana Grande performed Carpenter’s song, Espresso off-key at what was supposed to be a wedding dinner. The skit trending following the episode, and soon many people were singing “The Bridesmaids wanted…”, off-key and laughing at the fact that the bridesmaids were spilling to her husband that she had cheated with someone named Domingo.
During the 50th anniversary special, the roles reversed. While sticking with the same skit narrative, the bridesmaids and Sabrina Carpenter sang “Defying Gravity”, a song from Wicked that Ariana Grande starred in.
The popular Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter Domingo skit is freshman Elizabeth Clement’s and Maeve McGrath’s favorite sketch of all time.
“I loved this skit because it shows the playful aspect of Sabrina Carpenter and how SNL can make anything funny and enjoyable to watch,” Clement said.
“I think my favorite sketch was the Domingo and bridesmaids sketch to the song Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter. I had the sketch stuck in my head for a long time after hearing it,” McGrath said.
This is just one example of the many popular sketches that have taken the Saturday Night Live stage in its half a century of seasons. To watch free episodes of SNL or the SNL 50th anniversary special, you can stream on Peacock or Hulu.
