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Saturday Night Live

SNL50: The Anniversary Special

Directed by Liz Patrick

TV-14

S50 • E13 Feb 15, 2025 2h 33m

The award-winning sketch show celebrates its 50th anniversary live from New York, featuring musical performances, former cast members, special guests and all-time favorite sketches.

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SNL50: The Anniversary Special Ratings & Reviews

jackmeatJune 2, 2025
My quick rating - 8.0/10. If you’ve ever wanted to attend a high school reunion where the valedictorian is Lorne Michaels, the cool kids are every A-lister in Hollywood, and the yearbook is 50 years thick with iconic sketches, SNL50: The Anniversary Special was your dream prom. And yes, Paul Rudd was somehow there too, glowing like he moisturizes with unicorn tears. (Shameless Death of a Unicorn plug) Celebrating five decades of Saturday Night Live, this special was less of a retrospective and more of a "remember when THIS happened?" fans dream—one that, for better or worse, knew exactly who its audience was: fans who’ve watched the show since Chevy Chase fell down some stairs and called it a cold open. The star power? Nuclear. From original cast members rising like comedy gods from the mist (seriously, Dan Aykroyd looked like he came straight from bottling more Crystal Head vodka) to surprise cameos from celebrities who seemed to materialize out of pure reverence for Studio 8H, it was a veritable Who’s Who of “Wait, THEY were on SNL??” If your IMDB app didn’t crash trying to scroll through the credits, you deserve a medal. As a lifelong fan, it was hard not to get choked up revisiting sketches that defined generations, especially the inclusion of Don’t Look Back in Anger. Yes, it’s morbid. Yes, it’s ironic now. And yes, it hits like a perfectly timed Belushi pratfall into your heart. Watching an aged-up Belushi solemnly shuffle around the tombstones of his castmates, claiming to be the last one standing (before he became the first to go), was the kind of emotional gut-punch that only SNL could deliver with a wink and a grimace. It was weird. It was brilliant. It was SNL. But the special didn’t just live in the past—it had new material too, and not all of it felt like the comedy version of your uncle doing the Macarena. The real MVP moment was the new close encounter sketch, where Kate McKinnon once again committed fully to being an intergalactic weirdo while Meryl Streep (you heard me), Pedro Pascal, Jon Hamm, Woody Harrelson, and Aidy Bryant tried not to break like first-year improv students. McKinnon remains a national treasure, and watching Streep and Pascal lose composure as she described alien probing like it was a Yelp review made the whole thing worth it. Still, this special leaned heavy into nostalgia—like, “we’re playing the hits and if you don’t get it, tough” levels of nostalgia. For newer fans, it may have felt like sitting through your parents’ slideshow from the '70s and being expected to know who Gilda Radner was. But if you've ever wanted to shout "SCHWING!" or mime a church lady shimmy, this was your Super Bowl. In the end, SNL50 wasn’t just about comedy. It was about legacy. It reminded us that a sketch show with a rotating cast and live cue cards could become a cultural cornerstone—launching legends, creating catchphrases, and, occasionally, making you ugly cry with a black-and-white clip of John Belushi in a cemetery. And then two minutes later, there's Kate McKinnon making Pedro Pascal laugh so hard he nearly leaves his body. That’s Saturday Night Live for you. And Peacock is the place to check it out.

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