Saturday Night Live Sidelines Jon Hamm During Scattered Episode
Hamm’s first time hosting SNL in 15 years reminded us why he’s a pro at the show, even if he was barely used during the live taping because of pre-recorded material and a long Weekend Update.
For the fourth time, Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live last night. Hamm is one of the hosts I remember most vividly from the late 2000s, when I was really getting hooked on the show. Him appearing twice in 2010 was especially brilliant, as SNL really took advantage of his Mad Men mega-fame. Hamm, as it turned out, had a real penchant for comedy, establishing himself as one of the best hosts of the era—which makes his absence between October 2010 and now all the most puzzling. Now, granted, he’s been back to Studio 8H about 14 times in the last 15 years (he made sure to point that out in his monologue), so it’s not like Lorne Michaels dropped Hamm completely without rhyme or reason, but, still, he couldn’t have hosted once in that span? I suppose he didn’t really have a blockbuster film or show to promote, considering most of his strongest clips around then came via supporting roles in Baby Driver, Richard Jewell, and Top Gun: Maverick. Needless to say, I’m happy that Hamm is back, making a stop in NYC on his Your Friends & Neighbors press tour.
Some of my all-time favorite SNL sketches feature Hamm, especially “Vincent Price’s Halloween Special” and “Trick-or-Treat.” He and someone like Jake Gyllenhaal are cut from the same cloth: confident leading men who can play it straight and take the freakiness up a notch if the material calls for it. I imagine that writing sketches around someone like Hamm could be fruitful, as evidenced by how well the show has recently performed under the leadership of someone like, say, Pedro Pascal or Benedict Cumberbatch—serious on-screen guys with a bit of quirk in their step. And, going into last night’s episode, I was rather excited to see how this season’s team of writers would gel with Hamm’s stately, everyman energy. With a guy like him at the helm, character work could—and should—be a breeze.
Unfortunately, last night’s episode felt… off. When Hamm was on-screen, he gelled well with the cast. But there wasn’t a whole lotta “live” material to work with. Not counting the cold open and Update, we got four live sketches and three pre-recorded ones. That means Hamm was only on stage for four out of the nine segments (five out of 10, if you count his monologue). It reminded me of the Dave Chappelle and John Mulaney episodes, as the balance wasn’t quite there but the good stuff was good. Compared to last week’s Jack Black-hosted episode, last night wasn’t as consistent but the highs were far more interesting. Hamm reminded us why he’s a pro at SNL, and he has all but locked up his inevitable induction into the Five Timers’ Club. I just hope we don’t have to wait another 15 years to see him get his jacket, though I will probably wince at the inevitable cameo-infested monologue sketch forced upon us when that time does come. So let’s kiss and tell and take notes. As a wise cue card says…
“Live from New York…”
Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) stands in-front of a frozen cast and rambles for six minutes. Where have we seen this before? Right, during the Founding Fathers cold open in January. This time, however, there are no Lin Manuel-Miranda cameos, and thank God. This edition of the sketch went far better than the last one, as Easter Sunday looms and a brief narration about the resurrection of Jesus and the cleansing of his temple quickly transitions into Trump doing a monologue about his tariff plan disaster. I’ll be honest, the bit grew stale really quickly, save for a couple of nice one-liners about eggs and four-dimensional chess.
The problem with SNL’s take on the current political climate is it’s too one-note. Their default—Trump doing off-the-cuff sermons full of tangents and digressions—is disappointing, if only because there’s no absurdity in the drama. I guess it’s a proper mirror to what’s really going on, how everything Trump does is ludicrous to the point of disbelief, but, being the broken record that I am, these sketches always leave me wanting more from JAJ’s approach. The whole “Trump is a bumbling idiot” thing doesn’t jibe with me, considering that the current administration is actively enabling a genocide and actively trying to strip its own citizens’ rights away.
But this week’s cold open was saved when he started talking directly to his castmates, much like how the cold open was saved when he started ribbing Manuel-Miranda three months ago. Trump mentions that Emil Wakim should be playing Jesus, not Mikey Day (who gets made fun of for his Great Clips commercials), before criticizing Sarah Sherman’s open mouth and referencing Ego Nwodim’s “men ain’t shit” moment during her Miss Eggy bit on Update last week. The sketch doesn’t quite break containment, though SNL rarely fails when it gets pointedly referential like this.
“You look mahvelous!”
Death, taxes, and Bowen Yang having an off-kilter sketch right after Weekend Update: These are life’s guarantees, and they delivered once again last night. “New Parents” was a delightful re-up of “We’re Trying,” which featured Adam Driver as Bowen Yang’s partner. Hamm sells the role better than Driver but still manages to let Bowen be fully in control of the bit. Every minute of this sketch was pure magic, and the hardest I laughed all night. Hamm and Bowen show up to a friend’s house with a newborn baby in tow, much to the confusion of everyone else in the room.
They all want to know where this baby suddenly appeared from, but Bowen and Hamm just want to be taken as seriously as any straight couple. They don’t want to answer any invasive questions and, given that they spent the previous night at a rave called “Bulge Dungeon,” nothing is adding up. The baby wasn’t planned, Hamm reveals, and there’s confusion about whether or not it was stolen.
The sketch is meant to be a spoof on queer tokenism (“It? You mean she/they until he tells us otherwise!” had me laughing audibly), and there’s even a funny moment where Bowen, who speaks eight languages—English, French, AP French, Na’vi, Simlish, Black-ish, Grown-ish, and Singing—calls his friends transphobic before Hamm laments there not being a word for a phobia against gay people. This was my favorite sketch of the night, and it could’ve been a contender for one of my favorite sketches of the year had the momentum not been cut down by musical guest Lizzo’s one-line cameo as the baby whose origins were in question. But the sketch is saved when Mikey Day asks how old the baby is and we get a great final quote from Hamm and Bowen: “You cannot ask women that!”
“Yipee! Jerry Rubin died last week.”
Weekend Update, like last episode, was strong last night. Jost and Che, for the first time this season, were hardly the main characters of the segment—which allowed them to really drop some whip-smart punchlines. The usual suspects were put into focus: Trump’s tariff failures, his “BE COOL!” post on TruthSocial, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute mirroring the stock market “going up,” chickens selling their feet on OnlyFans now that farmers can’t sell them to China, getting an employee discount on the US-made, $3,500 iPhone because your child works at the factory, and, because of anti-DEI rules, teachers now have to sleep with their white students too.
Tech CEOs are mad about Trump’s tariff plans. I love a good Update montage, so getting a clip about all of the times Trump was very vocally pro-tariffs was a nice touch. Tesla’s cybertruck sales are down, thanks to their catchphrase: “What if Kanye was a car?” The Detroit Tigers’ assistant manager sent dick pics to a colleague, giving a whole new meaning to “torpedo bat.” “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” Che sings, upon announcing that a man who robbed and sexually assaulted a dead body on an NYC subway is wanted by police. A tortoise gives birth at the age of 100 because her boyfriend “pulled out too slow.” High marks for Che and Jost this week.
Three guest commentaries happened on Update last night, all of which were timely enough to feel warranted. Generally, there have been a lot of character misses this year, but Sherman, Wakim, and Yang all brought their best to the desk. I’ve been hoping for a reprisal of Bowen’s Chen Biao character and we finally got the Trade Daddy back behind the desk. It’s definitely the weakest of the now-six Biao bits, but I’ll never turn a chance to hear Bowen wax Gen Z about US-China relations. Again, tariffs were the hot topic of the night, though some “12-year-old loser who bullies women online in a Peter Griffin Fortnite skin” named Declan caught a major stray during Biao’s antics. But, as an Ohioan with an Appalachian family, I cracked up when Biao pulled out a copy of his work-in-progress book, Peasant Elegy. At least Glenn Close got her Chinese Oscar.
The rate of young Americans who feel patriotic is at an all-time low, Emil Wakim stopped by to talk about how hard it is being from this country, especially with an immigrant father. His long-winded joke about how the way we interact with our UberEats drivers shows our hypocrisy was great, as was his one-liner about the Hell we’re in now that an M&Ms store is by a church. He takes a shot at Brooklyn residents who think they’re above capitalism and, even through all of the jokes and the bit’s referential ending (Jost joking that he’s looking forward to reading the YouTube comments about Wakim’s monologue), Wakim delivers a painfully needed moment of clarity: “I’m part of the problem.”
The only thing as common as Bowen Yang showing up in a good sketch right after Update is Sarah Sherman showing up on Update to make fun of Colin Jost. Playing his accountant Dawn Altman as Tax Day nears, we get a lot of Sherman’s usual schtick: pushing Jost to the brink with low-hanging, probably-made-up embarrassments. But she’s done that exact bit way better. What saved last night’s iteration, however, was Sherman standing up from the desk and shoving her head through the Update wall, revealing all of the kidnapped women Jost has been hiding back there.
“In a word? Chaos.”
Last night was one of those episodes with no glaring weak points, but “Guess! The Correct! Answer!” didn’t totally click with me like the rest of the material. Michael Longfellow, still the cast’s most underused player, is back as another game show host, Marky Mark Brandon Marcus. Contestant Paul (Hamm) is a dentist with everything to lose and nothing to gain, as he worries about messing up, doing something embarrassing, and going viral because of it. Longfellow does his best to reassure Paul, as does his guessing partner (Day). It doesn’t take long for Paul to out himself as a racist who has hyper-sexual daydreams about his daughter’s hot friends. The sketch wasn’t inherently bad, largely because Hamm does a great job selling his effort. But it’s the kind of sketch your middle-aged white aunt would think is funny. There was a good line in there from Longfellow about the game show’s title that properly encapsulates this era of SNL: “The focus group called it fine for now.”
“You are weak like H.R. Pickens!”
Last Sunday, The White Lotus had its season three finale, and SNL spoofed the show’s Ratfliff family story in Thailand by inserting the Trump family into it. The sketch is full of cameos, from Alex Moffat and Beck Bennett returning as Eric Trump and Vladimir Putin, to Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Ivanka Trump. Marcello Hernandez, who was otherwise absent from last night’s episode, re-ups his unfunny Marco Rubio impression, while Hamm struggles to do a RFK Jr. bit. Seriously, the voice could have used a lot more gurgling. What are we even doing? SNL probably drank from the tariff well a little too much last night, but I’ve gotta give some props to the writers for producing a Trump sketch where Trump (JAJ) isn’t the main character. And kudos to the editing team for making every shot look as saturated and jaundiced as Mike White’s Emmy-winning show does in real life.
“If you have a $50 bill, we can give you 50 singles.”
We got a whole bunch of pre-recorded sketches last night, including Please Don’t Destroy’s film “Missing Person,” which relies on controlled outlandishness but can’t quite hit the mark completely. The gist is easy enough: A young woman—a relative of a powerful councilman—is missing, and the police are trying to solve the case. It’s going to be a long night at the station, so the cops are ordering pizza for everyone. Daniels (Hamm), treating the seriousness like a high school sleepover, is especially stoked about this—excited to the point that it’s all he can think about. He forgets who even is missing, assuming it’s just a dog. Then, he finds out that the head detective (Ben Marshall) ordered three Hawaiian pizzas, which sends the entire department spiraling. John Higgins even channels his own Allen Gamble with an old-fashioned desk pop. It’s a very silly premise, but Please Don’t Destroy have done far better character work. To be honest, I miss the after-hours, in-office videos.
“Medication Ad” was electric, making fun of white tropes and those damn medical commercials that use the same template every single time. The idea that, if you’re the person having the most fun at a party, doing rock climbing in slow-motion, hanging out with interracial friends, winning a carnival game, or standing front-row at a folk concert, then you should probably get tested for herpes, diabetes, depression, and erectile dysfunction is a hilarious dig. Hamm’s narration is sharp, too. The ad spoofs have been hit or miss for me this season, but this one lit up the show’s post-Update block.
“It’s always something.”
“Check to Check Business News” was a cold open disguised as a post-monologue bit. News spoofs haven’t been landing for me this season, but this one was fine—likely because I enjoyed being reminded about all of the generic versions of big-brand foods my family used to buy when I was a kid. Though, I think this sketch could have definitely used a nod to poverty nachos. But I digress, as Hamm and Ego Nwodim had good chemistry as anchors and it was great to see Dismukes almost crash out over his astronomical investments in Funko Pops. Kenneth (Hamm) bought his suit at Kohl’s and admits that the bond market crashing doesn’t bother him, because he doesn’t know what any of the language means. Kenan shows up with some tips on how to shop smarter, including buying Sergeant Munch instead of Cap’n Crunch or eating his cousin DeVonte’s homemade pizza (which is just Wonder Bread and ketchup), but it’s when Hamm and Nwodim start rambling off taglines from the show’s sponsors (“Chipotle Napkins: ‘Cause Charmin Prices Be Trippin’”; “Taco Bell: Should Meat Cost Less Than Gum?”), the sketch really locks into full-gear. There’s even an all-in-one shampoo, body wash, and shave gel! It’s called “bar soap.”
“Your very precious lunch hour…”
I had to watch the 10-to-1 a few times to really dig it, and that’s not a bad thing! New employees are doing ice breakers during a meeting. Standard stuff, like gardening, painting, swimming, and having a twin sibling, until Greg (Hamm) announces that his “mom killed his dad naked on TV.” The TV show? Jackass, apparently. The whole group is shaken by this revelation, including Susan (Ashley Padilla), who can’t seem to remember a thing about herself, including her name. Her fun fact? “Being a woman.” Dismukes, playing the group leader Chris, was a great anchor in this sketch. Sometimes, the last gasp of the night doesn’t need to be shocking or alien. Thanks to Hamm’s charisma and an ensemble that’s bought in on the premise, “Icebreaker” was lights out.
Not Ready For Primetime Power Rankings
1. Bowen Yang No cast member had a no-doubt great night except Bowen, whose turn as Chen Biao and sketch lead in “New Parents” were highlights for me. I wasn’t sure how often we’d see Bowen alongside Hamm, at least in comparison to how involved he was in Gaga’s episode, but it was good seeing him active last night.
2. Emil Wakim Call me crazy, but I really enjoyed Emil’s Update bit. He may have only been featured there and briefly in “Guess! The Correct! Answer!,” but I do love it when a cast member shows up on Update and just rambles as themselves. Few can pull it off, but Emil was up to task.
3. Sarah Sherman Granted, Sarah wasn’t super involved last night, but her Update bit as Dawn Altman worked well enough and she got a couple of good lines in during “New Parents.” And, JAJ even singled her out during the cold open! She was busy but nicely under the radar.
Goodnights
I hate to agree with Mr. Hamm, since recency bias often favors the bold, but Mad Men was definitely a better show than Succession.
SNL is off for a few weeks but will return May 3rd with host Quinta Brunson and musical guest Benson Boone, so we’ll catch you then. And that’s the way it is! Goodnight.
