Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake opened with a smashup song highlighting several famous SNL skits 
In the hosting position was Steve Martin, joined by Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin. Then Melissa McCarthy joined in the opening monologue along with Chris Rock, Payton Manning, and Miley Cyrus who was once a host and a musical guest of the show. Billy Crystal came next followed by Paul McCarthy and Paul Simon who played guitar together to one of Simon’s songs.
Steve Martin threw to a montage of SNL show clips. Literally 2 to 5 seconds of tons of skits. A great walk down memory lane.
Dan Aykroyd did the Bass-O-Matic skit live. He put a bass in the blender, yikes, and it worked well the first time, but when he tried to add more fish the blender didn’t work. It was still funny.
The Jeopardy skit was next with Will Ferrell playing Alex Trebek and Alec Baldwin playing Tony Bennett. And they couldn’t do that skit justice without Darrell Hammond’s hysterical impression of Sean Connery. They added Burt Reynolds played by Norm Macdonald and Jim Carrey came in as Matthew McConaughey. He made his McConaughey imitation famous with his recent SNL parody of McConaughey car commercials.
New SNL cast members Pete Davidson and Leslie Jones came out to introduce audition tapes of various SNL past and current members, which was a very interesting behind-the-scenes peek at how cast members make it to the Saturday Night Live stage.
Robert De Niro was next. He stumbled a bit, but it’s Bobby De Niro – who cares. He introduced another montage of clips, including the famous moment between Lorne Michaels and Rudy Giuliani after 911.
Keith Richard took the SNL stage next to introduce Paul McCartney performing Maybe I’m Amazed.
Jack Nicholson was next to introduce a look back at 40 years of political humor on SNL. Chevy Chase was heavily represented in these skits as well as Dan Aykroyd, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell and of course Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
The next live skit was The Californians with Bradley Cooper, Kerry Washington, Taylor Swift and Betty White appearing with former and current SNL cast members. Bradley Cooper planted a big, long kiss on Betty White before they ended the skit with a short interlude from David Spade doing the Flight Attendant skit.
The next live skit was Weekend Update with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Jane Curtin. Loved it!
Emma Stone played a quick tribute to Gilda Radner and her character Roseanne Rosannadanna.
Melissa McCarthy portrayed the Van Down by the River character made famous by Chris Farley as she fell on the news desk and broke it in half, which leads into a montage of Weekend Update clips.
The men of Weekend Update took the stage live to introduce Chevy Chase. They stumbled a bit, but it worked.
Garrett Morris did his yelling for the hard of hearing character during Chevy’s brief monologue. Good to see Garrett was part of the show.
Martin Short was next. He said he’s been friends with Lorne Michaels for 40 years, but only hosted the show just once. He was joined by Maya Rudolph playing Beyonce’. They sang a parody of her song Drunk in Love before throwing to Fred Armisen and Kristine Wiig characters who sing bad songs, badly and out of sync in the audience.
Will Farrell and Ana Gasteyer did their singing teachers skit. They were hilarious too. Joe Piscopo played his Frank Sinatra character. Dana Carey sang Chopping Broccoli, followed by Adam Sandler who sang as Opera Man, Steve Martin did King Tut, Kenan Thompson did What’s Up With That, Bill Murray had to be blacked out while he sang, and Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi did a Blues Brothers song.
Chris Rock took the stage and did a monologue on Eddie Murphy to introduce Eddie Murphy. Eddie brought the audience to their feet when he came out. “This show is such a big part of who I am. It’s a good feeling. It makes me very happy.” He applauded the audience and thought they were going to do something else, so he said, “Well let’s do it again.” And the show then went into a commercial break. His segment started out great but ended with an awkward moment.
Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning introduced 40 years of sports on SNL. Remember The Bears skit. We also got to see a quick clip of Tracy Morgan for the first time this evening in this montage.
Myly Cyrus performed 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover with Fred Armisen was in the band.
Jerry Seinfeld was up next and joked about Brian Williams being one of the first cast members saying, “But it so doesn’t sound true.” Jerry then asked Michael Douglas in the audience why he only hosted the show once? He said when you get asked again they usually don’t have anything going on.
John Goodman stood up in the audience to object to that comment. James Franco stood up and asked if everyone got his emails. Then Larry David stood up and asked, “Was I really a writer on Saturday Night Live?” Jerry answered, ‘Yes you were a writer for one season.” Former cast member Ellen Clayborne asked, why aren’t there more Black woman on Saturday Night Live, and how many Black women were on the Seinfeld show?
Jerry admitted Seinfeld had a lack of people of color and jokingly moved on to Dakota Johnson from 50 Shades of Grey who said she’s going to host the show and asked what does she need to know? Jerry jokingly said basically be submissive.
Former cast member Tim Meadows stood up next followed by Bob Odenkirk who was a writer on SNL. Then Sarah Palin, who Jerry first called Tina, asked what if she ran in 2016 with Donald Trump? This segment ended with an uncomfortable pause, before Jerry said, “We’ll be back.”
The Mom Jeans commercial aired next, which is still hilarious.
Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin wished Tracy Morgan was able to be with them as Alec imitated him before throwing to a clip of Tracy playing Brian Fellow.
Kanye West was next who performed while laying down on his back on the stage. He sang Jesus Walks. His face was upside down for a while. He can’t help himself. He got on his knees and sang Only One. His voice cracked a bit on that one, and he ended with Runaway.
Louis C. K. introduced a montage on SNL short films. Remember Mr. Bill, Deep Thoughts, and of course Dick in a Box.
We got a quick look at Paul Shaffer before Bill Murray introduced the segment to remember the people that were lost to SNL.
They lightened the mood at the end of the segment by showing Jon Lovitz as passed, but of course, he has not.
Mike Myers and Dana Carey performed Wayne’s World live! And they commemorated this skit with their top ten list. They had Kanye West act like he had to be kept in his seat by guards. Number one on the top ten list was the production crew of SNL. Good job guys, the crew got recognized with a standing ovation.
Paul Simon was next and gave the Saturday Night Live Band applause before performing his song, Still Crazy.
Lorne Michaels was brought to the stage for their traditional ending of the show with everyone on stage hugging and saying goodbye.
A fitting SNL 40 tribute to a television dynasty.
Happy 40th SNL!
Tanya Hart