Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: January 2, 2021

It’s a new year with an old SNL as Saturday Night Live rings in 2021 with a repeat show hosted by John Mulaney!

Saturday Night Live will be in reruns for another couple of weeks while the cast and crew finish up their winter mid-season break. The host hasn’t been named for the SNL Mid-Season Premiere episode as of yet. However, if Saturday Night Live is going to air a rerun to kick off 2021, this is one of the best episodes to choose.

John Mulaney hosted the 5th episode of SNL – Season 46. It originally aired on October 31, 2020 which is becoming a theme with John Mulaney and Saturday Night Live, where he hosts on special dates. Earlier in the year known as 2020, Mulaney hosted the one and only Leap Day show in SNL history on February 29th.

Besides Halloween, it was the Saturday before the 2020 Presidential Election, as if Halloween wasn’t scary enough. SNL – Season 46 guest star Jim Carrey opens tonight’s show as Presidential challenger and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, reading a revamped version of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.” That was the source material for a parody poem all about the upcoming election. As awful as the “Jim Carrey as Joe Biden” cold opens had gotten over his previous 4 SNL show opens, this one really finds its rhythm and comedic voice.

There’s quick appearances during the SNL Cold Open tonight by the show’s cast members including Kate McKinnon who brought back her top 2016 impression, Hillary Clinton, to huge applause, plus there’s Mikey Day as presidential election prognosticator Nate Silver, Beck Bennett as Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Blue Hands” McConnell, along with Kenan Thompson and Chris Redd as Trump supporters Ice Cube and Lil Wayne in their red MAGA caps.

Fourth Wall Alert! You can see Jim Carrey start to lose it and start laughing at Kenan Thompson’s impersonation of Ice Cube in this opening sketch.

Bonus Cameo Alert! Former cast member Maya Rudolph returns once again tonight to play Joe Biden’s running mate and soon-to-be Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris. For all the SNL work that Maya has done this so far this season, EP Lorne Michaels really should put her back in the opening credits. Jim Carrey and Maya Rudolph have such dynamic chemistry in this opening sketch, that it kind of makes you wish, they were actually running for the White House together.

Carrey’s Biden wraps up the SNL Cold Open tonight by saying what 81,283,485 Americans would be feeling the following Tuesday, “This Daylight Savings Time, let’s gain an hour and lose a President” followed by a vocal duet with Maya and Jim shouting in unison, “Live from New York! It’s Saturday night!”

After SNL announcer Darrell Hammond reads off the introductions, host John Mulaney takes the stage. This evening’s SNL repeat is Mulaney’s 4th time hosting Saturday Night Live. He’s now an annual host and has been every year since SNL – Season 43 in 2018. We are just a season and a show away from John Mulaney being inducted into the Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club. That should be quite a spectacle. It’s almost like Lorne Michaels and Mulaney already have a great idea for his Five-Timers induction and that’s why Mulaney is speed-hosting his way through his first 4 hosting gigs.

It may or may not be a coincidence that SNL is re-airing John Mulaney’s Season 46 appearance tonight. It’s been just a little over 10 days since it was reported that Mulaney was entering a Pennsylvania rehab facility for alcohol and cocaine abuse according to an exclusive with the New York Post’s Page Six. John Mulaney has made his struggles with addiction public in the past and says he first attempted getting clean at 23 years old, 10 years after he first started drinking regularly.

Re-airing tonight’s John Mulaney hosted-SNL may be a shout out from variety series where Mulaney worked as a comedy writer for 6 seasons starting in 2008. Saturday Night Live is also where John Mulaney won his first Primetime Emmy Award for comedy writing. Then again, chronologically, the Mulaney SNL was the next in line to replay while the cast is on a break, so it may just be serendipity in action.

For his monologue, the former SNL writer and Emmy winner took the stage at Studio 8-H with a handheld mic, the sign that an actual stand up comedian is hosting SNL tonight. Wearing one of his trademark tailored suits, John Mulaney dives right in with pure stand up comedy for his opening monologue segment.

Mulaney pads his own SNL stats as he starts his monologue and acknowledges the first responders who are in the studio audience as a small thank you for putting themselves on the line during the pandemic. He introduces himself as a comedian or as he likes to call comics, “the last responders.”

His opening remarks focus on New York City where Mulaney currently lives. John Mulaney is pro-mask when it comes to helping stop the pandemic. Unfortunately, as much as he loves that people are wearing masks to stay safe, he just wishes the masks wouldn’t keep you from overhearing people’s conversations on NYC streets which Mulaney calls “one of the city’s greatest joys.” Funny ’cause it’s true.

Mulaney also discusses his favorite show to binge watch during the quarantine. He describes it as “an hour long dramedy called ‘The Daily Press Conferences of Governor Andrew Cuomo'”. His description of the New York Governor’s press updates are perfect. Mulaney also has a special announcement to make during his monologue and wraps up with great story about his grandmother, voting and her driver’s license.

The centerpiece of any John Mulaney-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live is the big production, song and dance number. Tonight is the fourth chapter in John Mulaney’s musical sketch opus. Each one begins the same way, with a guy meaning no harm committing a New York City faux pas. In past shows, the unwritten NYC rules broken have included ordering the lobster at a diner, asking to use the bathroom in a bodega, and purchasing the pre-made sushi at La Guardia Airport.

Tonight’s over-the-top production number sketch kicks into musical high gear when another one of the universal laws of New York City is broken. It begins when a simple New Yorker (cast member Pete Davidson) attempts to buy a pair of “I Heart NY” underwear which has been hanging on display for decades in a Times Square souvenir shop. Suddenly the walls separate and a cast of Times Square cartoon characters break into song.

The characters include a Minion, Batman, Minnie Mouse, Elsa from “Frozen” and of course, the most unsavory of all, Times Square Elmo. They kick off the musical sketch with a parodies of “Luck Be A Lady” from “Guys and Dolls” and “One” from “A Chorus Line” which includes rewritten lines about pubes and skid marks to make it more relatable to the souvenir underpants.

Kate McKinnon arrives mid-sketch as Shrimp Louie the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company mascot from its flagship restaurant in Times Square. She has a solo parody of “Send in the Clowns” from the show “A Little Night Music“, called “Send in the Crowds” which have been missing since the pandemic struck New York City. Then, Beck Bennett appears with his pants around his ankles as the Times Square neighborhood perv, “The Diddler on the Roof.”

Other performances in this very ambitious sketch include Maya Rudolph, back from tonight’s cold open to play a Times Square Statue of Liberty impersonator belting out a glorious mock version of “I’m Here” from “Follies” and featured player Chloe Fineman as the Westchester Covid Lady singing her own version of “Big Spender” called “Super Spreader“, originally from “Sweet Charity“. Then the entire cast takes it home with their own Election Day rendition of “One Day More” from “Les Misérables.” If it was all possible to win a Primetime Emmy and a Tony Award for Best Revival, John Mulaney and his SNL cast should win it.

A couple of the other sketches on tonight’s repeat SNL involve premises we’ve seen before on Saturday Night Live. This evening’s “Cinema Classics” sketch is one of those. It’s always hosted by cast member Kenan Thompson as fictional PBS host Reese De’What who makes sure to mention his troubled marriage each time he appears on SNL. These sketches often take a movie that’s considered a classic by film buffs and then point out the ridiculousness of the plot. The last time John Mulaney hosted, “The Sound of Music” got the “Cinema Classics” treatment.

Since it’s Halloween, the film being scrutinized is a horror movie. It’s Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds“. This sketch stars cast member Kate McKinnon as actress Tippi Hedren who made her film acting debut in “The Birds” and host John Mulaney as Sheriff McCafferty. Between McKinnon’s dead-on yet silly as hell Tippi Hedren impression and the over-the-top goofy bird effects, this sketch now easily makes any SNL Best of Halloween list.

Following the Halloween theme in tonight’s SNL repeat, there’s a sketch where host John Mulaney plays Ichabod Crane from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow“. This “Headless Horseman” sketch is naturally more silly than spooky and questions the advantages of having a severed head. Makes you wonder.

Another repeat premise from a previous John Mulaney hosted SNL show is the sketch that finishes up the night. It’s called “Another Uncle Meme.” Last time Mulaney hosted Saturday Night Live, he played a man who was the victim of his social media savvy nephew (Pete Davidson) who turned him into a meme and a laughing stock. In this version, nephew Tyler is still up to his meme practical jokes, but this time he’s taken it into his uncle’s place of business and embarrasses him in front of his co-workers.

Fans of SNL Shorts get two of the digital sketches tonight. Being just days from when American voters head to the polls to select a President, the first SNL Short this evening has an election motif. Cast members Kenan Thompson, Chris Redd, Ego Nwodim and Punkie Johnson join together for a music video done 70’s funk and soul style called “Strollin’“. This SNL Short about voter suppression has the quartet “strollin’ to the polls”. However, every time they arrive to vote, a very white John Mulaney is there to explain why they won’t be able to cast their votes at that particular location.

The next SNL Short on this evening’s rerun is a thank you to New York City from its citizens. The “New York PSA” captures different ways of life in NYC including that one really quirky older lady (Kate McKinnon) you see sunbathing topless in the Park and sharing an ice cream cone with her dog. Actual New Yorkers have seen this Bohemian type of woman before in real life. SNL‘s version of her lives in a “44 floor walk-up” and she’ll be performing her one-woman production of “The Lion King” in the Park everyday until Broadway reopens. “The people just crazy enough to call this place home will always be here. I love New York!!”

Since this episode of SNL was the the Saturday before the Presidential Election, there could only be one top story for this edition of Weekend Update, and that’s President Trump attacking America’s doctors by claiming they get paid more if someone dies. Sounds like President Cranky Pants knew what was going to happen the following Tuesday. To set the record straight, anchorman Colin Jost comments that Trump has “officially killed more people across the Midwest than Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy combined.”

Then anchorman Michael Che remarks on rapper Lil Wayne endorsing the President by saying, “Keep in mind, Lil’ Wayne puts cough syrup in his Sprite, so….”. Che also gives a congratulatory shout out to his co-head writer and co-anchor Colin Jost on his marriage to Academy Award nominee Scarlett Johansson. Sweet, yet hilarious.

Political stories dominate this rerun edition of Weekend Update. Jost & Che comment on plenty of political news items including Trump supporters being hospitalized in Nebraska after being stranded in the freezing cold following one of DJT’s super-spreader campaign rallies, along with Joe Biden’s chances of winning the state of Georgia, and First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner’s insulting comments regarding Black Americans. Colin Jost also brings up the national exhaustion of having Trump as President for 4 years. Jost compares Trump to that partying friend who never wants to call it a night and then refers to Joe Biden as our country’s designated driver.

Other stories used for comedy tonight on Weekend Update include Twitter’s new policy towards false information being tweeted as fact, Amy Coney Barrett being confirmed by the Senate for the Supreme Court, Panera Bread’s new pizza menu, an NYPD officer suspended for using his patrol car loud speaker to support Donald Trump, Bud Light Hard Seltzer’s new holiday flavors, porn star Ron Jeremy facing 300 years in prison, and a Texas man using a robot hand to pass out candy on Halloween.

Cast member Kyle Mooney returns to Weekend Update in this evening’s repeat as the breakout star of “The Mandalorian” on Disney+, Baby Yoda. “The Child” as he’s known is back on Update to talk about season 2 of his “Star Wars” series. Baby Yoda discusses some of his more admiring fans, his new line of weed products and his ongoing feud with Baby Groot from Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Basically, all the same stuff Baby Yoda discussed the last time he was on Weekend Update.

On a side note regarding this evening’s SNL repeat, tonight’s Saturday Night Live Bumper Photos by photographer Mary Ellen Matthews are brilliant. They’re usually great each week, but the ones she shot for this episode really nail it. These are the photos of the host that we see when SNL is coming back from commercials.

The first bumper photo this evening looks like a campaign photo from out of the 1940’s or 50’s. Mulaney is exhausted while sitting next to a pile of handheld “Elect Mulaney” campaign posters. The next bumper shot seen on tonight’s SNL repeat is John Mulaney recreating the iconic photo of the “Dewey Beats Truman” newspaper headline being held by a victorious President Harry Truman after the 1948 election that was not suppose to go Truman’s way. It was reported to be such a shoo-in for Thomas Dewey, that he quit campaigning and let Truman back in the race.

Mulaney is next seen in an SNL Bumper Photo as First Lady Nancy Reagan at President Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration in 1981. Mary Ellen Matthews and John Mulaney capture Mrs. Reagan’s classic all red outfit including pillbox hat that became a signature look for our nation’s First Lady from 1981 to 1989. Finally, John Mulaney portrays our 45th President in a bumper photo. He’s got Trump’s trademark hairstyle as a he blows a bubblegum bubble in front of the American Flag.

Also tonight, watch for the shirt John Mulaney is wearing for the curtain call and “thank you’s” at the end of the show. It has a three-letter word in all capitals. It simply says “HAL”. It’s a tribute to the man who was a Saturday Night Live legend for decades, SNL segment music producer Hal Willner. He passed away during the early days of the New York City Covid epidemic. Mulaney and Willner worked together during the host’s days as an SNL writer and John Mulaney wanted to show his respect on his first night back since Hal’s death, to the music producer who became a Saturday Night Live icon.

In the first promo for tonight’s SNL rerun which are located directly below for your convenience, we get host John Mulaney telling his own Saturday Night Live story in about 15 seconds. It’s a montage highlight reel of all of Mulaney’s best moments over his past 3 SNL hosting gigs.

The next set of promos gives us host John Mulaney along with musical guest, The Strokes and cast member Ego Nwodim. The group go over a list of reminders, but there’s something slipping their collective minds. Also, we learn the scary details behind the Curse of John Mulaney.

John Mulaney hosts an all-out comedy and musical extravaganza on a repeat episode of Saturday Night Live with musical guests, The Strokes, tonight at 11:30pm et on NBC. Happy New Year!

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