#Paul Rudd’s Saturday Night Live Was Totally Disrupted And Weird, Thanks To Omicron

As we mentioned, this episode of “Saturday Night Live” marked the fifth time that Paul Rudd hosted the show. It has become customary on “SNL” for hosts reaching this milestone to be inducted into the “Five-Timers Club,” complete with a nice, plush robe. Unfortunately, this honor for Rudd didn’t shake out in nearly as rewarding a fashion as we’ve seen before, thanks to the limited cast and crew.

Tom Hanks began the show on the main stage in his own Five-Timers Club robe, and he was joined by fellow frequent host and former cast member Tina Fey. After some quick banter, they brought out Rudd, who kept the energy up despite the “disappointing” circumstances that he playfully acknowledged right off the bat. Kenan Thompson had the honor of giving Rudd his fancy robe, even though this episode really only counts as hosting four-and-a-half times. 

This kind of thing is awkward without a live audience, even as Tom Hanks and the limited crew tried to make as much noise as possible with all the applause they could muster. Thankfully, Steve Martin helped liven things up with a recorded message alongside Martin Short (watch one of his hands carefully as he gives a drink to his “Only Murders in the Building” co-star). The video was “mistakenly” made for Tom Hanks, but some shoddy audio adjustment turned it into a congratulations for Paul Rudd instead. 

Well, congratulations, Paul Rudd. Hopefully “SNL” will bring you back to do this a little more properly sometime next year. Even though this situation is a bit of a bummer, it certainly made “SNL” history, and it’s undoubtedly a situation that Rudd and the rest of us won’t forget anytime soon.

Thankfully, the entire show didn’t unfold this way. There were a handful of pre-recorded sketches made for what would have been the live show, and those still aired last night among a smattering of assorted holiday sketches from previous seasons. So let’s dig into the new sketches.