John Mulaney Brutally Roasted Alec Baldwin at the Start of ‘SNL50’
As a 16-time host, including some of the first classic Saturday Night Live episodes, Steve Martin deservedly got the call to deliver the opening monologue on the SNL50 anniversary show tonight. He delivered punchlines that had the Studio 8H crowd rolling, mostly at the expense of his advanced years. “Do these hearing aids make my ass look smaller?” he asked.
After a funny tribute to SNL’s writers — a quick cut to a group of actual Saturday Night Live scribes standing outside 30 Rock — one of the show’s actual writers joined Martin on stage: John Mulaney. With Martin praising the writers, it was time for a writer to say something about the hosts.
“As I look around, I see some of the most difficult people I have ever met in my entire life,” Mulaney joked. “Over the course of 50 years, 894 people have hosted Saturday Night Live. And it amazes me that only two of them have committed murder.”
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WHOA! It was no problem for Mulaney to make an O.J. Simpson joke — Norm Macdonald made a career of it on Weekend Update. And most probably won’t remember that the convicted Robert Blake hosted in 1982.
But technically, there’s another SNL host who held a smoking weapon. That’s the only man in the show’s history to host more than Steve Martin — de facto cast member Alec Baldwin. The actor was the one holding the prop gun that killed a cinematographer on a film set, a tragic accident for which Baldwin has avoided prosecution.
As several Redditors have pointed out, Baldwin qualifies as a punchline for Mulaney’s joke. After dutiful decades of hosting and hamming it up with his Donald Trump impression, Baldwin likely didn’t appreciate even the suggestion. Mulaney was the one who delivered the shot (choice of words only somewhat unavoidable), but Baldwin knows his pal Lorne Michaels gave the punchline a thumbs up.
