Nine Five-Timers Club members (and Jimmy Fallon) welcome Martin Short into the ‘SNL’ club
The show unleashed a wave of celebrity cameos — and the infamous ‘Weekend Update’ joke swap — as the ‘Only Murders’ star hosted for the fifth time.
Right before this episode of SNL began, I jumped on Bluesky to ask if we should predict a celebrity cameo for Martin Short’s episode. He was joining the Five-Timers Club, so a cameo or two could be expected.
SNL gave us ten cameos. Ten.
To celebrate Short joining the Five-Timers Club, nine other members of the club showed up during this episode’s cold open. And Jimmy Fallon was there too.
There are 27 members in the Five-Timers Club now. The 2020s are currently tied as the second most prolific decade for new members of the iconic SNL group, with six new members (Paul Rudd, John Mulaney, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Kristen Wiig and now Short) being added since 2020. With more than half the decade still to go, the 2020s have a real shot at passing the record eight new Five-Timers Club members (Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck, Tina Fey, Scarlett Johansson, Melissa McCarthy, Dwayne Johnson, Jonah Hill and Will Ferrell) that we saw earn that honor during the 2010s.
If you ever needed an example of the different ways that SNL can employ cameos, this episode’s cold open — a bunch of former hosts brought on to celebrate the show’s long-running legacy — was a clear contrast to having Dana Carvey and Maya Rudolph shoved down our throats episode after episode after episode to begin the season. (Still couldn’t escape Carvey tonight, though …)
On a pure performance level, Short was a good host. You don’t host SNL five times if you’re not. But the episode fizzled out after the high of Weekend Update’s joke swap. It was fun to watch Short get inducted into the Five-Timers Club, but his actual work in this episode failed to live up to sketches like “Science Room” and “The Holiday Train” from when Short hosted with Steve Martin two years ago.
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COLD OPEN
Martin Short Five-Timers Club Cold Open
I wasn’t sure if this episode would open with a Five-Timers Club bit, but — wow — did it ever. As I mentioned before, we got ten cameos during the cold open: Tom Hanks, Paul Rudd, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Emma Stone, John Mulaney and Jimmy Fallon.
When Wiig joined the Five-Timers Club last season, the show used her monologue to induct her into the esteemed group.
- “You’re in the Five-Timers Club now. The rules are different.” Huh. What an interesting line to give to Baldwin.
- “I have to go host another game show and laugh at my own jokes”: I’m not quite sure why Fallon was part of the cold open. He hasn’t hosted SNL five times. I guess NBC didn’t want to miss a chance to rev up the Jimmy Fallon Industrial Complex to see his Christmas album.
THE MONOLOGUE
When you kick off your episode with a cold open featuring cameos from nine members of the Five-Timers Club (and Jimmy Fallon), where do you go for your monologue?
Short told a few jokes before jumping into a sing-and-walk monologue, leading us through the halls of Studio 8H.
