October 31st SNL Review — John Mulaney and The Strokes
This past Saturday, John Mulaney hosted NBC’s flagship sketch comedy program, Saturday Night Live, with The Strokes as a musical guest. It should be noted that Mulaney is no stranger to SNL, as he spent several years as strictly a writer there, and this is his 4th time hosting the show since his stand-up / voice acting career has taken off. With that being said, it makes sense that Mulaney’s episodes would receive a lot of preemptive hype, and Mulaney’s latest effort does not fall short of those high expectations.
As to be expected, the show started off with a Jim Carrey Joe Biden cold open, spreading a holiday message regarding Halloween and the upcoming election. It was a nice break from the standard debate layout from the past few cold opens, and a light-hearted, funny intro to the show.
Following the cold open was an opening monologue from Mulaney that was easily the best of the season thus far. As was the case with Bill Burr, though there couldn’t be two more different monologues, performing comics provide the best opening monologues. Mulaney talked about COVID-19, the election, or “old man contest” as he calls it, his grandmother, and a variety of other topics. No matter what he was talking about, however, he was getting consistent laughs, which never really stopped for the entirety of the episode.
As far as live sketches, there were no weak links. The first of two revived concepts from past Mulaney episodes was the “New York Musical” sketch, where after Pete Davidson asks to buy a pair of underwear from a New York souvenir shop, several characters from the city break out into parodies of popular showtunes. It’s a bizzare take on the premise from the “Diner Lobster” and “Bodega Bathroom” sketches from the past, and includes nearly every cast member as well as a surprise appearance by Maya Rudolph. Following this sketch, and switching to a Halloween theme, was a headless horseman sketch where Mulaney is confronted by the famed horseman, and instead of being scared, is more curious about the potential for the use of the head in a different context. Readers can infer what I mean by that or watch for themselves, but it’s hilarious. Next up was a Cinema Classics sketch, where Keenan Thompson introduced fake deleted scenes from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, pointing out the ridiculousness of the movie as a whole. Mulaney and Kate McKinnon provide hilarious performances, and the sketch ends on an especially strong note. The last live sketch, “Another Uncle Meme”, sees Mulaney berating his nephew, who memes Mulaney’s picture from a dating profile. While it’s probably the least funny of the live sketches, it’s still great.
The video sketches were fantastic this week as well. Starting with a Democracy PSA, where the cast talked to the camera about their hope for democracy and the future, while being seen simultaneously buying weapons, fleeing the country, and hiding away in vaults. Next was the “Strollin” sketch, where an R&B group sing their way to the polls, only to find that they’re all closed. Lastly, the “New York PSA” highlights safety concerns in the best way in the city during the pandemic. All of these were funny, and provided a greta break between the sketches.
Lastly, Weekend Update ended the show on a particularly high note, with some heavy-hitting jokes regarding the election that garnered equal groans and laughs from the audience, which is always a good sign. There also was a returning performance by Baby Yoda, played by Kyle Mooney, that was far better than his first attempt, and had the crowd laughing at every line. All in all this was the best Weekend Update thus far, which is fitting as it was apart of the best episode thus far this season.
10/10
