Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: October 31, 2020

For the 4th time in 4 seasons, here’s your host for tonight’s brand new episode of Saturday Night Live, John Mulaney!

It’s now become an annual SNL tradition that comedy fans look forward to each and every year. It’s when Saturday Night Live welcomes home one it’s most beloved and successful scions, John Mulaney back to host. Tonight celebrates the headlining comedian’s fourth time hosting SNL.

Sure, four SNL hosting gigs is quite an accomplishment for anybody, but what makes it really impressive is that John Mulaney is hosting Saturday Night Live for the fourth time in just four seasons and that includes hosting twice in the year 2020. This puts John Mulaney just one hosting appearance away from being inducted into the prestigious Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club which Mulaney is obviously being fast-tracked towards.

Saturday Night Live has plenty of regular hosts who come back to emcee the show from time to time. But Mulaney doesn’t take any seasons off. He’s back each and every year. This feat could only be compared to the great, late Buck Henry who hosted Saturday Night Live a record-breaking 10 times during SNL‘s first 5 years from 1976 to 1980. No one has come close to Buck’s consistency till now with John Mulaney leading the way.

John Mulaney’s relationship with Saturday Night Live started back in 2008 when he was hired behind-the-scenes and not as part of the cast. He was tucked away in the SNL writers’ room for 6 seasons, beginning in SNL – Season 34 under the direction of head writer Seth Meyers. Like a Comedy Cinderella, Mulaney was allowed out of his SNL office occasionally to do hilarious editorials on Weekend Update, but then he was quickly ushered back to the writing department, and put back to work churning out classic sketches for his comedy stepsisters in the SNL cast to perform.

Mulaney was the genius behind Bill Hader’s New York City underground club kid character, Stefon. But it was Hader who got to go to the Weekend Update ball on Saturday nights to dance with the prince. In this case, the prince was then-Weekend Update anchorman Seth Meyers. John Mulaney was awarded for his work on SNL with a glass slipper, or his case, a Primetime Emmy Award.

The former SNL writer turned stand up superstar made Saturday Night Live history the last time he hosted the show during SNL – Season 45. It was his third time emceeing the variety show and that date happen to fall on February 29, 2020. That night the fates aligned (or at least the calendar did) and John Mulaney became the first person to ever host Saturday Night Live on Leap Day!

If you decide after tonight’s all new Saturday Night Live that you can’t get enough of that John Mulaney guy, just go to Netflix where there is a treasure trove of John Mulaney comedy specials available to enjoy. His Netflix resume includes “John Mulaney: New in Town“, “John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid“, “John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous” along with his Broadway run with Nick Kroll captured on film in “Oh, Hello on Broadway” where he and Kroll play New York’s favorite curmudgeons George St. Geegland and Gil Faizon respectively.

Plus, there’s John Mulaney’s most recent comedy offering to the streaming service, “John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch” which is a comedic salute to the children’s variety shows of the 70’s like “The Electric Company“, “Zoom” and “The Great Space Coaster.” John Mulaney recently signed a deal to bring his Sack Lunch Bunch to Comedy Central with two brand new specials featuring Mulaney, guest stars and his cast of 15 kid performers.

John Mulaney’s appearances hosting SNL are known for more than just how frequent they’ve become. When John Mulaney is in-studio, the entire cast and production staff go all out for a big over-the-top song and dance sketch. These musical sketches all have a common thread where they’re all based on some New York City unwritten rule that all New Yorkers follow, not because it’s the law, but because it’s just something decent people do.

For example, in the episode where John Mulaney first hosted SNL in 2018, the sketch began with cast member Pete Davidson ordering the lobster off of a NYC diner menu. You can understand immediately why this isn’t done in polite New York City society. The diner scene featuring Mulaney as a the disgusted waiter then transformed into a parody of “Les Misérables” with cast member Kenan Thompson as a singing lobster.

When John Mulaney hosted SNL for the second time in 2019, Pete Davidson committed the NYC faux pas of asking for the key to use the bathroom in a New York bodega. That disgusting premise led to a medley of Broadway tunes with big musical numbers, high production values and a singing toilet reminiscent of Audrey II, the singing Venus Flytrap in “Little Shop of Horrors.”

A year later during SNL – Season 45, Mulaney was back for a third time and the big musical number sketch featured Pete Davidson buying the sushi at La Guardia Airport which you don’t even have to be a New Yorker to know that’s nasty. Again that led into a grand musical medley featuring a cameo by Jake Gyllenhaal on wires flying and singing above the stage along with a cameo from that night’s musical guest David Byrne leading the cast and audience in a chorus of “Flight to Nowhere.”

How Mulaney will top himself with tonight’s big production number is only limited by Mulaney’s own imagination along with the creativity of the SNL writers and the genius of the production team and hair and makeup artists.

One thing that seems easier to speculate on is which unwritten rule from the lives of New Yorkers will Pete Davidson break this evening to set the musical sketch into motion? It feels like John Mulaney only scratched the surface in his first 3 SNL hosting appearances. Maybe tonight, Pete only tips 15% in a restaurant which is another big NYC no-no, or he rides an escalator by standing still on the LEFT side of the moving stairs which is unheard of, or perhaps he commits the biggest NYC sin imaginable, he eats at an Olive Garden. The horror!!

A safer guess would be something Covid19 related. Maybe the maleficence will include someone not wearing a protective mask on the subway. A New Yorker not social distancing in a Duane Reade drugstore. Or could it be a combination of all the big issues facing not only New York City, but the rest of the country including Covid19, BLM and Election Day!? No matter what it is, we know John Mulaney and the SNL cast will make it a spectacle.

Tonight’s SNL – Cold Open will most assuredly deal with the Presidential Election. After all, Saturday Night Live only has Jim Carrey rented to play Joe Biden for another two weeks before their lease is up and they have to return him. It’s a safe bet that Alec Baldwin is back to play Trump again this week.

There is so much Trump material in the news again this week, Saturday Night Live will have trouble choosing which stories to use. The SNL writers could joke about President Trump walking off his “60 Minutes” interview with Leslie Stahl. That sounds like a part for featured player Chloe Fineman or maybe SNL veteran cast member Cecily Strong to play the part of the exasperated “60 Minutes” correspondent.

Other Trump news that Weekend Update might comment on from this week includes Trump cancelling his big Election Night party at the Trump International Hotel in DC, Brett Favre endorsing President Trump, Tucker Carlson from Fox News claiming that documents incriminating the Biden Family got lost in the mail, a record-breaking amount of gambling happening on the U.S. Presidential Election, Jared Kushner being accused of “casual racism”, and not to mention Amy Coney Barrett being sworn in as the newest Supreme Court Justice.

Of course, tonight will be the SNL – Season 46 Halloween show. With fingers crossed and several rabbit’s feet in our pockets, we’ll be hoping for a cameo by multi-time host Tom Hanks returning as his bizarre, yet hilarious Halloween character tonight, David S. Pumpkins.

Other news items for Weekend Update that don’t involve anyone with the name “Trump” includes Aunt Becky from “Full House“, Lori Loughlin reporting to prison for her part in the college admissions scandal and hoping to be out by Christmas, Kim Kardashian’s kooky 40th birthday party including her dad’s back-from-the-dead hologram appearance, hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen buying the New York Mets, “The Mandalorian” and Baby Yoda returning for a new season (Kyle Mooney report to makeup), the return of McDonald’s McRib, Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton getting engaged, Paul Rudd handing out cookies to good citizens waiting in long lines to vote, scientists creating the whitest shade of white paint ever, and the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the World Series in 6 games. (boooo!)

Saturday Night Live has put out promos for tonight’s new show which are waiting comfortably below for you to enjoy at your leisure. The first of the promos for tonight’s new SNL airing coast-to-coast features John Mulaney telling a condensed version of his SNL story while clips of his previous three hosting gigs play in a quick montage. Don’t blink or you’ll miss shots of his comedy, SNL monologues, backstage moments and clips from his SNL writer days when he would get put in a sketch or two.

Promo set #2 is something new for the pandemic. Since SNL has returned under strict Covid guidelines, this is the most people Saturday Night Live has placed in a single promo during the pandemic era. John Mulaney is joined by cast member Ego Nwodim along with all the members of tonight’s musical guest, The Strokes. The group has some reminders for tonight, so you might want to grab a pen and paper and jot them down. Then Ego Nwodim crunches the numbers on John Mulaney’s last appearance and finds out that we may have discovered the cause of the Coronavirus. And it’s not GGGyna, President Trump.

Master comedian John Mulaney returns to host Saturday Night Live for the fourth time tonight along with musical guest The Strokes. It happens tonight on All Hallow’s Eve at 11:30pm et and live coast-to-coast on NBC!

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