The celebrity cameos strike back: ‘SNL’ kicks off Season 50 on a low note

SNL is ready to celebrate its 50th season. Even if it’s at the expense of the show’s actual cast.

The show returned for a new season last night. After a summer of rumors — Steve Martin as Tim Walz? Taran Killam as JD Vance? Someone besides James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump? — we finally got to see Lorne Michaels’ grand plan for the season.

If you love celebrity cameos, you’ll love that plan …

While cast member Andrew Dismukes kicked off the season as David Muir, SNL quickly turned to cold open over to a parade of cameos. Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris. Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz. Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff. Dana Carvey as Joe Biden.

You’d be forgiven to think that SNL didn’t have actual cast members. Based on one Reddit comment I saw this morning, people seem to actually not understand the format of the show is supposed to be a guest host and a cast with the occasionally fun cameo. Seriously, someone was asking why the show had Bowen Yang play a part when they could’ve had Gaffigan, Samberg or Carvey do it.

I get that Michaels wants to play into the idea that this is SNL’s 50th season. He loves his cameos. The last era of celebrity cameos almost broke the show, though.

“I also think the 40th [anniversary show] really sort of affected Lorne in that I think it was exciting and I think it was flattering and I think he was really able to sort of relish in this incredible institution that he’s responsible for and all these amazing iconic careers and all of his famous friends, and it had to have been the most potent overwhelming boost of a ‘this is your life’ experience ever,” former cast member Taran Killam told Vulture in 2018. “And then it all went away, and then it was back to this cast who’s all 40 years younger than you and aren’t as famous as Tina Fey or whatever, and my experience was he became very impatient.”

If SNL once again turns the show’s actual cast into background players for Michael’s famous friends, is there a future beyond this season? (According to a report following this episode, these cameos weren’t one-offs …)

SNL is obviously very proud of these cameos. But this was not a good episode.

While texting about this episode before it aired, I mentioned that Jean Smart is the kind of host you bring in when the host doesn’t matter. Michaels knew that the focus of this episode would be boiled down to two things: It was the kickoff of Season 50. And he had loaded it up with celebrity cameos.

Smart gave it her best as a host. But it never mattered.

Welcome back

COLD OPEN

Harris and Trump Rallies

I hate this cold open. I hate it so much.

It’s everything I’ve railed against when it comes to SNL’s direction over the past decade. Instead of putting the show’s cast front and center, SNL shelved them and handed the keys to a roster of celebrities.

This cold open is incredibly lazy. I wouldn’t be shocked if Lorne Michaels turned to Jim Gaffigan to play Tim Walz after Steve Martin passed on the role just because some listicle had Gaffigan in the No. 2 slot in their list of white dudes who look like Walz.

While the cold open focused mostly on Rudolph as Harris, a lot of us were on edge waiting to see who would play Trump. After Michaels recently hinted that he would turn to someone other than James Austin Johnson, there was the fear that the show would ditch the greatest Trump portrayal it’s ever had. Would Michaels bring Alec Baldwin back?

Thankfully Johnson is still SNL’s Trump. At least for now. (I do wonder if the backlash to that article where Michaels hinted that he was going to replace Johnson spooked him out of a decision to bring someone else in.) There’s still plenty of season left for Lorne Michaels to make another bad decision.

• “The Funt has been rebooted”: Rudolph put minimal effort into refreshing her portrayal of Harris since we last saw it back in 2020. Once again, just bizarre that Michaels played up the idea of refreshing the show’s version of Trump when he was turning back to this.
• “Don’t start no stuff, won’t be no stuff, Donald”: It pains me to see Andy Samberg come back to the show to snag a cameo role like Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. I love Samberg. I listen to the podcast he does with Seth Meyers and the rest of The Lonely Island every week. Samberg became a star because he had the space to become a star. Former cast members weren’t showing up and stealing the airtime that went to the Digital Shorts.
• “A lot of people forget I’m still president. Including me.” I do have to hand it to Carvey. His Biden was the best Biden we’ve gotten since Jason Sudeikis — and Sudeikis was playing a Biden from a different era.
• Excited to be indicted: The rumor that Tracy Morgan would play New York City Mayor Eric Adams this episode turned out to be false.

THE MONOLOGUE

I usually like to write something substantial about the monologue. But I honestly have nothing here.

When I saw them wheel out the piano behind Jean Smart, I thought she was going to take a seat in front of it. The piano monologue is always a hit. We saw Adam Driver deliver a killer piano monologue last season.