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Saturday Night Live’s 50th-anniversary special worked best when it behaved like a live variety show: familiar characters returned, new pairings sparked fresh sketches, and musicians from different generations shared the stage. The celebration ran long and sometimes felt made for insiders, but its energy and warmth kept me smiling more often than not.
What was the SNL 50th-anniversary special?
NBC scheduled the three-hour special for February 16, 2025, from 8 to 11 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, as the culmination of a weekend of anniversary events. It was broadcast from Studio 8 at Rockefeller Center. In practice, reviewers described an evening that stretched to about three and a half hours—an early sign of both its abundance and its lack of restraint.
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This was not simply a clip reel or a documentary account of five decades of television. The program leaned on live performances, celebrity appearances and newly staged sketches built around familiar SNL characters. That choice gives the night its strongest argument for success, but also explains why viewers looking for a coherent history of the show may have wanted something different.
What worked: the reunion became a variety show
The opening made the old-and-new concept plain: Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter performed “Homeward Bound,” followed by Steve Martin’s monologue. Rather than build the whole evening around archival footage, the special brought performers together to make new material. TIME considered that a smart choice, arguing that the approach made the broadcast feel more like a variety show than an awards ceremony.
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Several sketches gained their appeal from the pleasure of seeing returning characters in fresh combinations. “Black Jeopardy,” a backstage “Debbie Downer” sequence, and a “Bronx Beat”/“Coffee Talk” mashup were among the night’s highlights for TIME. Eddie Murphy’s return also stood out in TIME’s account. Adam Sandler contributed an anniversary song, and Paul McCartney closed the evening with Beatles songs.
These moments offered more than recognition for recognition’s sake: the special could let old characters collide with new circumstances, and the live setting gave the proceedings a looseness that a sequence of greatest-hits clips would not have had. The pleasure depended partly on knowing the show’s history, but it was also a pleasure of performance—watching people share a stage and play off one another.
Where the old-and-new balance faltered
The anniversary’s generational bridge was more convincing in concept than in every performance. TIME felt the special aimed to reach viewers of different ages but devoted more attention to established legends than to introducing a new generation of stars. Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Eric Deggans likewise found that some musical pairings showed the strain of bridging generations, though he singled out Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard performing “Nothing Compares 2 U” as his favorite musical moment.
Rank #2
The opening duet was an effective statement of intent; it did not, by itself, solve the larger challenge of making a 50-year celebration feel equally meaningful to longtime viewers and people whose SNL reference points are much more recent. The night often relied on recognition rather than showing how the show’s comedy changed across eras.
The weak spots: length, insider humor and uneven sketches
A broadcast that ran roughly half an hour beyond its announced slot left little room for the feeling of a tightly shaped event. The abundance of reunions and callbacks could be delightful, but the concentration of famous faces sometimes made the celebration feel like a party for people already inside the SNL world.
Deggans’s assessment helps explain the divide: viewers chiefly seeking reunions and nostalgia could find the evening diverting, while viewers hoping for historical perspective—or for old sketches reworked to comment on modern life—were more likely to be disappointed. He also found some material insular and some early sketches uninspired.
Rank #3
“Weekend Update” was a missed opportunity to give one of the show’s most recognizable features a more distinctive anniversary treatment. TIME said it was diverted by Bill Murray’s list of former Update anchors. The long Lawrence Welk Show parody was another low point for TIME, although Kristen Wiig’s Dooneese offered a bright spot; Deggans also questioned the choice to revive the sketch. These are not reasons to dismiss the whole special, but they show how nostalgia could tip from affectionate to overextended.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Did the special succeed?
For me, yes—with a qualification. The special’s liveliest argument was not that every decade of SNL received a balanced account, or that every returning character justified the time spent on them. It was that a live reunion could still produce surprising combinations and fresh comic moments. The sketches gave the evening more pulse than a retrospective assembled mostly from clips would have had.
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That same choice left the historical story scattered among tributes, musical performances and callbacks. TIME saw the new-sketch emphasis as a strength; Deggans’s reservations show its cost for viewers seeking a more reflective overview. Both readings fit the event: it was a joyful performance-led celebration, not a definitive explanation of how SNL became what it is.
How many people watched SNL 50?
NBCUniversal reported 14.8 million viewers across NBC and Peacock in live-plus-same-day viewing, with a 2.53 rating among adults 18–49. Those are the reported figures for that measurement window, not a final consolidated audience total. NBCUniversal also reported 8.7 million social interactions. The Associated Press separately described the audience as nearly 15 million and noted that the total included Peacock live-streaming figures.
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