The Latest Alum to Return to ‘SNL’ Is As Big As Gets

Chris Rock, who made his fourth return as host on Saturday Night Live this weekend, was part of a cast that’s stuck together for an inexplicably long time. It’s all thanks to Adam Sandler, who insists on casting old SNL coworkers like Rock (a five-time Sandler movie co-star), Rob Schneider, Kevin Nealon, Robert Smigel, David Spade and Jon Lovitz. That gang has been cranking out what amounts to extended Saturday Night Live sketches for the past 30 years. So it was only returning the favor when Rock welcomed the Sandman back to Studio 8H for the first time since 2019. 

The premise of the Sandler sketch was solid: Rock is a surgeon who successfully removes a patient’s gallbladder only to discover that he was supposed to take out the appendix instead. “I’m just going to own it,” confesses nurse Leslie (Sarah Sherman). “That was me.”

Marking the wrong body part creates a frantic race to remove the correct organ before it bursts. But Leslie, who’s afraid everyone is mad at her, keeps interrupting the surgical team. She could really use a hug. What should be a focused operation becomes a debate about how the doctors should treat their incompetent co-worker (who also lost an AirPod inside one of the incisions). 

Finally, we get the big reveal — the patient awakens from his anesthesia, and it’s Sandler, inexplicably dressed in one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts. Rock’s Grown Ups co-star gets a full 10-second applause break as the crowd realizes who’s been hiding beneath the surgical drapes. 

The patient has something to say: “I heard the way you guys were talking to her, and it's not okay. Is Leslie annoying? Yes. If she was a guy, would I punch her in the face? Yes. If I were a woman, would I punch her in the face? Without a doubt. But every workplace needs a Leslie — one annoying coworker to rag on.”

And here’s where the wheels fell off. SNL has a long tradition of spurting blood as a gross-out punchline going back to Dan Aykroyd’s Julia Child opening an artery in Season Four. 

The show must have given Aykroyd’s old prop to Sandler — forty-some years of wear and tear might explain its malfunction. After defending Leslie, Sandler’s patient was supposed to start hemorrhaging blood but the pump/hose hidden in Sandler’s hand wasn’t doing its job. Sherman — who knows a thing or two about getting laughs with fake hemoglobin — ducked beneath the operating table for some mid-sketch maintenance. Old pro Sandler tap-danced while she fixed the problem, returning with a face full of plasma.

From there, it was Sandler gleefully spraying his gory Super Soaker, drowning the cast in crimson goo. At this point, the sketch was bulletproof — audiences love it when sketches go sideways, especially when the cast can roll with the mistakes. As such, “Gallbladder Surgery” ended up with the biggest laughs of the night.

The Sandler/Rock reunion is how SNL should have been handling its anniversary cameos all along. The first Dana Carvey cameo was fun, but we didn’t need eight. Here’s hoping Sandler’s big score encourages Lorne Micheals to bring back a different classic player every week — it’s a bloody good way to celebrate the show’s legacy.