One of ‘SNL50’s Grimmest Jokes Has Come True
Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special has gone viral — but not in the way they were hoping.
Steve Martin recently announced on Instagram that his sold-out live shows with Martin Short, which were set to happen this weekend in Durham and Knoxville, will have to be rescheduled. Why? Because “Marty has COVID.” At least the delay will give them the chance to rethink the show’s title: The Dukes of Funnytown!
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How did Short get COVID? At SNL50 of course. Fellow SNL alumnus Maya Rudolph also tested positive for the virus, according to Martin. To further underscore his point that the “SNL 50th COVID curse is real,” the star of The Jerk included a picture of Short and Rudolph smooching backstage, which they no doubt appreciated being posted online for everyone to gawk at.
Fans have been wishing Rudolph and Short well, and obviously hoping that the “curse” doesn’t come for anyone else who was at SNL50. Especially of concern are the older attendees, who are obviously more at risk of serious complications. The event included a number of legendary seniors, including Paul Simon, Jane Curtin, Jack Nicholson and 88-year-old Garrett Morris. Not to mention the fact that, at 80, Lorne Michaels is no spring chicken himself.
In retrospect, it could be argued that gathering so many elderly celebrities into a cramped studio during the height of cold and flu season may have been a bad idea. And this clearly isn’t something that didn’t occur to the SNL staff, because they literally joked about the potential dangers of the production during the show. In the special’s Weekend Update segment, Colin Jost casually noted that the U.S. is currently grappling with a surge in viral transmission. “Health experts are facing increased pressure this winter in the face of outbreaks of COVID, the flu, RSV and Norovirus, which they’re calling a ‘Quad-demic,’” Jost noted. “So we did the smart thing and packed every beloved entertainer over 60 into one tiny space.”
Now that Jost’s ominous punchline has proven to be disquietingly prescient, it does seem like maybe this could have been avoided? Like, they couldn’t have done this show in the spring, or even the early summer? The actual 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live isn’t until October — so why did they have to shoot SNL50 in February, when it was pretty much guaranteed that germs would be zipping all over Manhattan like microscopic Kevin McCallisters?
Even aside from the Rudolph-Short outbreak, producing the special at a time when it’s so easy to get sick is what led to Dana Carvey, one of the key figures in SNL’s history, missing the show entirely because he came down with a “bad flu.”
Although, to be fair, ignoring health concerns does seem to be in keeping with the history of the show.
