It wasn't as weird as when Adam Pally and Ben Schwartz hosted The Late Late Show after a New York City snowstorm.
The decision-makers behind Saturday Night Live decided on Saturday to reduce things back in light of spiking COVID-19 cases and the arrival of the omicron variant. At first, that meant no studio guests. The performance of musical guest Charli XCX was stopped.
The show aired at 11:30 pm. Tom Hanks came onto the stage from the back of the set instead of Paul Rudd, who was the host, because the house band consisted of only one sax and one piano.
Hanks was supposed to participate in the night's festivities since Rudd was going to host SNL for a fifth time. There was a sort of poetic justice to Hanks helping SNL with the first at- home episode of 2020 because he did it previously.
The celeb-filled stage made the most of their opportunity as the opening monologue bits went on. Hanks was joined by fellow five-timer Tina Fey, who wore a shield-shaped patch on her jacket, and together they welcomed a smiling Rudd to join them. Kenan Thompson, SNL's longest-tenured comic, stepped out to welcome Rudd and handed him a five-timer smoking jacket.
Thanks to the antics of Steve Martin and Martin Short, who appeared in a video call, it's a weird, awkward, sincere, wholesome, and always-so-slightly spicy start to SNL. A piece of TV history is about to be shown.
