Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: July 25, 2020

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Saturday Night Live continues its summer of repeats tonight with a historic SNL rerun hosted by John Mulaney!

John Mulaney’s relationship with Saturday Night Live has lasted well over a decade and currently, it’s better than ever. The nationally touring comedian who sold out large theater venues wherever he went in the pre-Covid world, once worked at Saturday Night Live as a staff writer.

He and SNL began collaborating back in 2008 and Mulaney had a place in the writers’ room for 6 seasons. Mulaney won a Primetime Emmy Award for his work on Saturday Night Live back in his SNL writer’s days. But recently, on a yearly basis, John Mulaney has been returning to NBC’s Studio 8-H to host Saturday Night Live. Tonight’s SNL repeat is Mulaney’s third hosting appearance from the variety series’ most recent season which aired originally on February 29, 2020, which is what makes this such a historic episode of Saturday Night Live.

Mulaney mentions this prestigious date in this evening’s monologue. Being Saturday, February 29th, 2020; it’s the first time in the 45 year history of Saturday Night Live that SNL aired live on the Leap Day in a leap year. It’s an honor Mulaney is proud to take into the history books.

A John Mulaney-hosted episode of SNL has become an annual tradition that tests the creative talents of Saturday Night Live‘s writers, performers, producers, hair & makeup artists and production designers. The highlight of each Mulaney SNL homecoming is the big, bright, over-the-top musical production number featured in each episode.

The Broadway musical parody sketch in this Mulaney episode from the recent SNL season didn’t disappoint when compared to its predecessors. In fact, the musical sketch in tonight’s repeat was bigger and better than the previous two piloted by John Mulaney. And it had plenty to live up to by comparison.

In 2018, during SNL – Season 43, Mulaney brought back a sketch that had landed on the scrap heap during his SNL writing days. It was a musical number that ambitiously parodied “Les Misérables” called “Diner Lobster” about a man who carelessly orders the lobster special at an NYC diner despite it obviously lacking years of freshness. A season later in 2019 during SNL – Season 44, Mulaney offered us “Bodega Bathroom,” a sketch where the same young man (cast member Pete Davidson) ask to borrow the bathroom key at a local NYC convenience store. Another New York City no-no. “Bodega Bathroom” was a big song-and-dance medley of famous Broadway songs. Hopefully, you’re beginning to see a pattern with Mulaney’s musical sketches.

And that brings us to tonight’s Saturday Night Live rerun which completed John Mulaney’s opus with a third act. In this evening’s repeat, we get “Airport Sushi.” In this piece, Pete Davidson is an airline passenger who makes the mistake of buying pre-packaged sushi at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, breaking another unwritten law of New Yorkers.

The cast and guest stars alike team up for another medley of famous Broadway tunes which have been changed up to play on every air travel stereotype that Americans faced back when we flew on a regular basis. For example, cast member Kehon Thompson, who’s already known for his singing skills on SNL does a number parodying “The Phantom of the Opera” when he portrays “The Phantom of LaGuardia” who was brought down by the same geese that forced Captain Sully Sullenberg’s 2009 US Airways flight to land in the drink in Hudson River.

Other appearances and performances to watch for in the “Airport Sushi” sketch this evening include cast member Kate McKinnon as Little Orphan Annie from the Auntie Anne’s Pretzels airport kiosk who performs a parody of “Tomorrow” called “de Blasio” in honor of the current, not-so-popular mayor of New York City and cast member Beck Bennett plays an unaccompanied crying baby about to board a transatlantic flight while doing a parody version of “Jet Song” from “West Side Story.” They’re joined by featured player Bowen Yang who parodies “Suddenly Seymour,” from the “Little Shop of Horrors,” and alters it to “Profiled Asian,” showing that the Coronavirus was already becoming part of our daily existence.

We get some great cameos in the “Airport Sushi” sketch tonight as well. Jake Gyllenhaal does a fine job as “Guy Who Travels in Pajamas” performing a perfect parody of “Defying Gravity” from the Broadway hit “Wicked“. And the sketch ends with musical guest David Byrne who appears as “the baggage handler who tosses everyone’s suitcases into Long Island Sound,” who leads the entire ensemble in a rousing version of the Talking Heads “Road to Nowhere” called “Plane to Nowhere.”

After all that, it’s hard to imagine there’s still the rest of this show to enjoy. Like they used to say on late night informercials, “But there’s more!”

This episode of Saturday Night Live starts off with a political SNL – Cold Open that helped begin the comedy portion of the Coronavirus crisis. It’s a press conference held by White House Coronavirus Task Force head Vice-President Mike Pence played by cast member Beck Bennett. And much like the real VP’s own marriage, he loses control of it pretty quickly.

Dr. Ben Carson, our current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, played by Kenan Thompson, says all the wrong things at Pence’s SNL press conference and then it’s taken over by the Democrats still running for President by the end of February including former cast member Fred Armisen as former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former cast member Rachel Dratch as Senator Amy Klobuchar and Larry David as Senator Bernie Sanders. Plus there’s cast member Kate McKinnon as Senator Elizabeth Warren and cast member Colin Jost as Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Even tonight’s host John Mulaney gets in on the political cold open fun when he ducks in and out as former Veep Joe Biden. Mulaney is the third person to play President Obama’s second in command during SNL – Season 45. He joins Woody Harrelson and former cast member Jason Sudeikis in the honors of playing the former VP who may possibly be our next P.

Mulaney leaves the cold open pretty early on to get changed for his SNL monologue, which is the best kid of monologue on Saturday Night Live, pure stand up. The comedian who currently has 4 stand up specials streaming on Netflix, was on SNL to promote his latest special for the leading streamer, “John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch.” It’s an adult comedy special under the guise of a children’s variety special filled with plenty of musical numbers and comedy sketches with guest stars and a cast of 15 kids. For someone who doesn’t sing, dance or play an instrument, John Mulaney is quickly becoming a master at musical comedy.

His monologue topics on Saturday Night Live tonight include dads who are getting older, how hard it is to make friends as an adult, Jesus and his powers, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution and its 3rd Amendment which never seems to get much publicity. That all changes tonight thanks to John Mulaney.

In tonight’s sketches, you’ll see John Mulaney play an uncle terrorized by his nephew (Pete Davidson) who keeps making embarrassing memes about him, along with playing Nazi officer Rolf Gruber in a scene from “The Sound of Music” where he finds a bigger age difference than he was expecting between himself and Liesl Von Trapp, and a baseball fan who was at the ballpark the very first time Jackie Robinson got booed after integrating Major League Baseball. However, Mulaney doesn’t play the guy booing. The sketch is a special on “Forgotten Figures of Black History” where Terrence Washington (Kenan Thompson) is lauded as the first Black man to boo Jackie Robinson.

There’s one other sketch in tonight’s SNL rerun which was the return of cast members Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant as two 1950’s aging Hollywood starlets who are very reminiscent of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis where they feud on and off the screen. These characters first appeared with host Jennifer Lopez shortly before Christmas last season in a sketch called “The Corporal.” In that sketch, McKinnon & Bryant are sisters vying for a returning Corporal’s attention while trying to get rid of their gorgeous younger sister played by J-Lo.

In tonight’s version called “The Admiral“, it’s the same premise except now the sisters are worrying that it’s their baby brother played by host John Mulaney who is attracting too much attention as a Naval officer home on leave. Mulaney plays this gay character who’s a “Petty Officer promoted to Pass Around Party-Bottom” extremely effeminately and with some extra swishiness thrown in on top of that.

If you like way-too-obvious jokes at gay people’s expense or just want to see John Mulaney as a twink in short shorts attempting to deep-throat a lollipop, this is your sketch. Another aspect to this sketch’s detriment is that Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant really find it funny themselves and break character with laughter in a way that would make Jimmy Fallon proud.

There’s one SNL Short on tonight’s replay. It’s called “Kyle’s Transformation” and of course, it stars cast member Kyle Mooney. In the short, Mooney is feeling bad when he’s passed over for a male stripper sketch because he’s seen as the unsexy geek of the SNL cast. Kyle dedicates himself into transforming into a muscular powerhouse which comes with some pretty scary results.

The lead story on tonight’s repeat edition of Weekend Update is the attack of the Coronavirus. Anchorman Colin Jost focuses on President Trump’s efforts to ease our fears by lying about the virus. Jost considers that to be yet another Trump failure, saying, “Hoping Trump can calm people down is like hoping cocaine can fight insomnia.” That’s followed by a montage of Trump’s comments which are so laughable that the SNL writers could let them stand alone.

Anchorman Michael Che, on the other hand, takes a more sensible approach and offers his best work of SNL – Season 45 by deciding to throw in the towel, give up and just drink while waiting for the virus to kill all of us.

The Weekend Update team also cover topics on tonight’s rerun such as the Coronavirus clobbering the stock market, the South Carolina Democratic Primary, Mike Bloomberg reportedly spending $3.5 million on campaign ads on black media outlets, Hillary Clinton’s new podcast, the redesigned Phillie Phanatic mascot, a kid who found a bag of meth in a school library, a new policy at Costco food courts, Ash Wednesday, and Donald Trump Jr. getting a permit to hunt bears even though he seems a lot more like the guy who hunts “wascally wabbits.”

Only one visitor is welcomed to the Weekend Update desk on this repeat and that’s Chris Redd who’s stopped by on the last day of February to talk about Black History Month and comment on the Coronavirus stealing the month’s spotlight. His complaints about February don’t stop there.

SNL‘s promos for this evening’s repeat episode are available for you to watch below. The first of the promos is taken right out of the gossip pages of that time. Host John Mulaney interrupts cast member Pete Davidson working with Guru Gary. Mulaney who took Pete under his wing and toured with him when Pete was going through major emotional difficulties in real life, is wondering what’s up with this new and improved Pete in the promo. Pete has even gotten rid of this monkey! There’s a call back to Pete actually claiming that everyone on the show thinks he’s a dumb fuck-up. That’s the real life part of the promo. Don’t worry. Pete still knows how to give the fans what they want.

Promo #2 is a John Mulaney highlight reel giving us a montage of Mulaney’s best work, not only as host, but from his days as an SNL writer as well. In the final promo for the episode, John Mulaney is joined by musical guest David Byrne and cast member Heidi Gardner. Like we mentioned earlier, David Byrne appears in tonight’s “Airport Sushi” musical sketch and he’s also featured prominently in the host’s new Netflix comedy special, “John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch.”

In this promo, it’s another historic occasion, besides Leap Day, for cast member Heidi Gardner. It’s one that comes with a fancy sash and a crown. Plus, John and Heidi are pretty worried about David Byrne thinking they’re cool. They’re so preoccupied with it that Mulaney didn’t even bring his puppet. Dammit.

Funnyman John Mulaney hosts an extravagant encore presentation of Saturday Night Live with musical guest, the Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, David Byrne. It’s airs tonight at 11:30pm et on NBC!

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper