You may have seen this sketch the other evening on Saturday Night Live. I didn't think it was that great, nor was what I saw of the rest of the episode…but I confess. I get a cheap thrill out of Surprise Walk-Ons. I love that whoop! you get from a live audience when an unanticipated celeb makes an entrance. It's one of the things SNL is still good at.
So I'm curious about something. This was a sequel to the "Five-Timers" sketch that was on the show back in 1990 when Tom Hanks hosted for his fifth time. In that one — which does not seem to be online at the moment, at least not where I can embed it — they did "reveals." For instance, there was a person reading a newspaper and then when he dropped it down, you saw it was Steve Martin. This time, Steve Martin was just standing there…and the live audience reacted at the precise moment when he was on-camera. Same with Dan Aykroyd, same with Chevy Chase.
Martin Short, Candice Bergen, Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin all made entrances so the audience didn't see them before it was time to react. Paul Simon might not have been that recognizable to most and he could have had his back to the cameras until an instant before he was spotted. But Martin, Aykroyd and Chase all had to be on the set a few seconds before we, the home viewers, saw them…and the live audience only reacted when we saw them.
So what was the deal here? Did they do this sketch on a set that all or most of the live audience couldn't see and they were only watching it on monitors? Did they tell the live audience, "If you see someone famous in this next sketch, don't react until we flash the APPLAUSE sign"? Anyone have an idea?
Three other thoughts about it…
One: It was nice to see those folks again but in a few cases, bittersweet in that Jerry Lewis way. I couldn't help but think that there was a time when Chevy Chase would have mocked an old-timer who came across as past-his-prime the way Chevy Chase came across.
Two: What? They couldn't get Elliott Gould and/or Ralph Nader again?
And Three: It's a shame Conan O'Brien is on the outs with NBC. In the original sketch, the door to the Five-Timers Club was opened by "Sean," a club employee played by O'Brien, who was then a writer for SNL. It would have been so funny if they had shown a snippet of the original sketch first so we saw him, then — live — Justin Timberlake arrives and is admitted by "Sean." He reacts: "Conan O'Brien???" O'Brien asks him to keep it to himself. "After what's happened with my career, I had to go back to my real name and beg for my old job back." Timberlake says, "But…but don't you have a series on WTBS?" O'Brien says, "That's on weekdays and the way it pays, I have to come here on weekends and pick up a few extra bucks."
Here's the sketch as it ran last Saturday night. See if you can figure out why the studio audience isn't reacting to some of these stars before we, the home audience, see them. And my apologies if Hulu makes you sit through an annoying commercial…
