John Mulaney returned home to Studio 8H for his seventh time hosting Saturday Night Live.
In his opening monologue, the 4x Emmy winner and former SNL writer recalled his time working on the NBC sketch comedy show from 2008 to 2013.
“One of the only difficult things about working here was dealing with hosts,” said Mulaney. “So, it’s fun when I host, because it’s like there’s no host.”
During his quick stand-up set, Mulaney noted how everything made sense after finding out his boomer dad was on the autism spectrum. “He doesn’t know he’s autistic. He’ll find out right at this airs,” he quipped.
The comedian also called out Boomers’ hypocritical complaints about Gen Z and joked about about his son’s toddler friends, which transitioned into a roast of RFK Jr., complete with a brutal impression.
“You dumbass, your thing can’t be the measles,” said Mulaney, adding: “Yeah, I called him Bobby. I’ve known him for over a decade. You shouldn’t be part of the government if I’ve known you for over a decade.”
In a news report sketch of a plane crash on a flight from Turkey to Newark, Mulaney played a survivor who attempted to play off his hair transplant bandages as injuries from the accident. Ben Marshall played another survivor with similar bandages, plus some very plump lip injections. “Unfortunately, some bees swarmed the plane, Sully style,” he claimed.
“I think those were geese,” noted Ashley Padilla’s reporter character as Marcello Hernandez played a pilot who got penile enlargement surgery.
The sketch ended with Kam Patterson as NYC’s former Mayor Eric Adams, who was also on the flight.
The next sketch was a fake pharmaceutical commercial for “Sister,” which is just Mulaney, Andrew Dismukes and Kenan Thompson relying on their sisters to take care of their sick parents.
In another sketch, Padilla played Kathy, the “worst person on earth” who crashes her co-workers’ happy hour, where she’s nursing a fishbowl. Mulaney tries to make his colleagues Day, Thompson and Sarah Sherman to ignore her, despite her hilariously awkward demeanor.
As Jeremy Culhane hosted the fake brewery show Gettin It Done, he had a few autumn IPAs with Mulaney’s Brewmaster Kenny, which led to the pair drunkenly making out multiple times.
“Well, turns out it was the beer,” said Culhane’s host Chris Gut after a steamy back-and-forth. “We hung out sober one day, and it was like, nothing.”
On “Weekend Update,” co-host Colin Jost commented on the FAA’s historic grounding of planes on Friday. “Suddenly, ferry transportation is looking pretty reliable,” he quipped.
Meanwhile, co-host Michael Che showed off his own RFK Jr. impression. “Put me in the cast, Lorne!” he declared.
In “The Little Park of Horrors,” Mulaney played a horse-drawn carriage operator mourning NYC’s recent ban, “and for no reason at all, except animal cruelty and human murders.”
In the musical sketch, he introduces a series of characters, including Veronika Slowikowska as a woman still finishing the marathon, singing a parody of “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Tommy Brennan plays a pedicab driver coming for Mulaney’s job with a take on “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).”
Day played a homeless man ranting about God, while Thompson played a cloud of weed smoke, backed by Sherman, Grace Reiter and Saidah Belo-Osagie in a rendition of Cats‘ “Mr. Mistoffelees.” James Austin Johnson played “Park Slope Cuck” singing his parody of “Maria” from West Side Story, entitled “Mamdani.”
In another Bowen Yang appearance, following the cold open, the SNL alum served his current Broadway role from Oh Mary! with a parody of the Dreamgirls song “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” about the MTA.
The sketch included an expert callback to Padilla’s Kathy character. “We talking transpo?” she asked with her fishbowl drink in hand.
In the final sketch, Day and several of the cast members played Boomers at Woodstock, planning to buy all the houses one day, keep all the money, scare their kids about weed and make college more expensive.
Marking Mulaney’s seventh time hosting Saturday Night Live, following his time as sketch writer from 2008 to 2013, Phoebe Bridgers joined him this weekend in her second gig as musical guest.
