10 Best Moments from 'SNL50' Special

by Julian Spivey
The 50th-anniversary special for “Saturday Night Live” aired on Sunday, Feb. 16. It was a star-studded event featuring legendary cast members from the show’s past and former hosts and musical guests throughout a three-and-a-half-hour comedy marathon.

There was much great stuff throughout the evening, which I will get to below. Still, I also had one major criticism: the show didn’t focus much on the first half of its legendary 50 years, with most sketches done throughout the evening from the last 25 years.

That didn’t sour the night much, but it was certainly noticeable and likely a con of the evening for many who’ve followed the show throughout the majority or entirety of its run.
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Here were my 10 favorite moments from the evening in the order they appeared on the show:
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Paul Simon & Sabrina Carpenter Perform “Homeward Bound”
Paul Simon is probably the first musical guest most folks who’ve been watching ‘SNL’ for many decades would think of is asked about frequent musical acts on the show. He appeared on the show's second episode in the fall of 1975 and has been on episodes in every decade and era of the show. The 50th-anniversary special was a homecoming for numerous cast members who returned to the famed Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, and it made for an excellent opening performance. Sabrina Carpenter is one of the more notable musical guests of the recent seasons, though she’s only made one appearance on the show thus far. Though seeing Simon perform alone certainly would’ve been great, the duo made for a nice passing-the-torch moment. 

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Goulet Meets Dooneese
When I saw the image of Fred Armisen as Lawrence Welk, I admit I flinched a bit because I knew it meant Dooneese, Kristen Wiig’s significantly foreheaded, tiny-hands character that was one of my least favorite recurring characters in the show’s history, was coming. But my all-time favorite cast member, Will Ferrell, saved the bit with his wild impression of lounge singer Robert Goulet. It was a mixture of Ferrell’s Goulet interacting with Wiig’s Dooneese that, for the first time, had me chuckling at Dooneese’s antics, as Ferrell’s lusty Goulet played off them so well. 

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Tina & Amy Answer Questions
The questions segment is a holdover from past ‘SNL’ anniversary shows, and it makes for a fantastic bit – especially when in the hands of legends like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, whom I’m sure wrote it together. In the segment, Fey and Poehler field questions from the star-studded audience members, which included modern stars like Quinta Brunson and Ryan Reynolds, as well as a legend like Keith Richards, who wondered if anybody had seen a scarf he left at the show in the late ‘80s. My favorite part of the segment was Jon Lovitz having to be seated in the American Doll store across the street as Julia Louis-Dreyfus needed the seat for her service dog, who is blind and helping it. Fey played a hand in writing parts of the special, but frankly, there wasn’t enough of her on screen. 
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Digital Short: Anxiety
Even though Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island cohorts have gotten a couple of Digital Shorts onto the show in its 50th season, there was still expected to be one on the 50th anniversary, as there had been 10 years ago for the 40th special. There was, and it was about the anxiety experienced by cast members and crew alike on the show on a weekly basis featuring Bowen Yang. It wasn’t the best digital short to appear on the show this season, but still a highlight of the evening. 
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Weekend Update
Weekend Update was my most anticipated part of the show, and though it was one of the best parts of the special, it was also a bit disappointing. The good parts were guest appearances by a couple of Update Hall of Fame correspondents in Cecily Strong’s The Girl Who Talks Too Much at a Party and Bobby Moynihan’s Drunk Uncle, an appearance by Seth Meyers (my second all-time favorite Update anchor behind Norm Macdonald) with Vanessa Bayer and Fred Armisen playing childhood friends of ‘SNL’ creator and producer Lorne Michaels. It also found a spot to use Bill Murray on the show. However, for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, not appearing in this segment was a shocker.  It was also disappointing not to see other Update anchors of the past like Kevin Nealon, Dennis Miller, Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin. Some of the biggest laughs of the evening were in this segment, but it also felt like one of the more significant misses of the show. There not being much of a Macdonald tribute was also disheartening. 
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Colleen Rafferty
The greatest recurring character on ‘SNL’ over the last decade has been Kate McKinnon’s alien abductee Colleen Rafferty. It was nice to see the return of Rafferty on the ‘SNL’ 50 special, even if Ryan Gosling – a frequent co-abductee in the sketches wasn’t available. Pedro Pascal and Woody Harrelson stepped in as Rafferty’s co-abductees, who got the better end of the alien’s treatment while she was once again pantsed and sexually harassed by those blasted gray aliens. The sketch featured the debut of Rafferty’s mom, played by Meryl Streep in her ‘SNL’ debut. 
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Adam Sandler's Musical Tribute to SNL
The most touching moment of the evening was Adam Sandler’s musical tribute to ‘SNL,’ which didn’t necessarily start that way, but certainly ended that way with tributes to his former castmates and friends, Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald. The song wasn’t as funny as many of Sandler’s songs have been over the years, but this special needed more tear-watering moments and it was nice to see Sandler supply one. 
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Mulaney Musical
John Mulaney’s many hosting stints over the last half-decade-plus on ‘SNL’ have been notable for his musical parodies, some better than others over the years. His trip through the decades of ‘SNL’ featuring musicals of each decade was one of the better ones he’s done. It began in 1975 when Pete Davidson and David Spade arrived from their small hometowns in the Big Apple. It featured comedic parodies of “The Lion King,” “Les Miserables,” “Hamilton” and more with a large ensemble that included former cast members Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Alex Moffat, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Cecily Strong, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Taran Killam, Will Forte and Kate McKinnon. It also featured current cast members, most notably Sarah Sherman, and former hosts of the show, most notably Scarlett Johansson and Paul Rudd. Seeing former ‘SNL’ band leader G.E. Smith and band member Paul Schaffer was a nice touch, too. 
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Debbie Downer
One of the funnier bits of the evening came late in the show when Rachel Dratch brought back her memorable Debbie Downer character, who was employed at the bar for the celebration and shared some devastating factoids with Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, Ayo Edebiri and Robert De Niro, who got so fed up with the depressing facts attempted to strangler her at one point. The most shocking aspect of this sketch was that Fallon held it together, even when Dratch’s character tried to poke him with a recurring bit about how she can’t have children.  
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Scared Straight
The special’s very last sketch was the one I laughed the most at all night, and I think it’s because it’s one I’ve missed so much. I loved Kenan Thompson’s recurring Scared Straight sketches that appeared on ‘SNL’ eight times from 2008-2012 and then disappeared, I thought forever. I wasn’t surprised to see Colleen Rafferty, Dooneese, Debbie Downer or really anything else that appeared on the special during the night but was almost knocked out of my seat by the return of Scared Straight, and the fact that it featured Eddie Murphy alongside Thompson was priceless. Thompson and Murphy were side-bustingly hilarious doing their best to scare some teens into acting right. When Will Ferrell showed up as Big Red it upped the ante even more. 
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What was your favorite part of SNL50?