‘SNL At Home’ Makes Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Brad Pitt Request Come True

HOST: Brad Pitt
MUSICAL GUEST: Miley Cyrus
EPISODE: Saturday Night Live Season 45, Episode 17
DATE: April 25, 2020

BIG PICTURE: The first episode of “SNL At Home” was as much a therapeutic gathering and show of defiance as it was a comedy program, a collective mourning of our current situation and of people SNL had lost, and a demonstration of how life might continue even if some of our most basic norms – for the time being, anyway – could not.

Last night’s funny, effective episode was more of an attempt to return to as much normalcy as we have available, bringing back old favorites and building on the strengths of the show’s new restrictions while advancing what they’ve learned about how to operate within them.

One strange advantage of our social distancing society for the show is that A-list celebrity cameos will now be even easier to obtain. No more having to fly across the country, disrupting your schedule – they can simply film from home, and, for an added bonus, why not let your wife and kids be in it too!

Last night’s episode featured appearances from Brad Pitt, Paul Rudd, and Adam Sandler, whose family appeared as well (Rob Schneider is his kid, right? No. Well, he was there too.) Several cast members’ families wound up on camera as well.

If there’s one cast member who has benefitted the most from the quarantine format, it’s Chloe Fineman, whose comedy history includes lots of self-produced videos, and who’s been using that ability to great effect here, earning more of a spotlight than she received in Studio 8H.

One aspect of SNL that may not fare well in this environment is Weekend Update, which, after the last episode’s touching and naturalistic approach, tried to recreate a more official tone, but lost many of the elements that make the segment pop. Given its jokey-joke format, Weekend Update doesn’t really work without some sort of live audience. Two elements of the first At Home episode that were scrapped last night but should be brought back were having Colin Jost and Michael Che obviously do the segment from their homes – they’re in front of a green screen now, and the effect is stilted – and having a virtual audience listening and laughing, instead of telling jokes into the void as they did last night.

The episode went host-less, although Pitt introduced surprise musical guest Miley Cyrus, who sang the appropriate “Wish You Were Here,” accompanied by an acoustic guitarist, in front of a roaring backyard fire.

The cold open found our new national doctor, Anthony Fauci, seeing his wish come true. When asked a few weeks back who he’d like to play him on SNL, Brad Pitt was his answer.

Well, what the good doctor wants, he gets, and there was Pitt, as Fauci, addressing the nation with a pronounced New York accent. He thanked the country’s older women for sending him “supporting, inspiring, and sometimes graphic emails.”

He then went on to correct some of the “misinformation” coming from of our president, reacting much as the real Fauci does – or how we imagine he’d like to if he had the freedom – to clips of some of the president’s more outrageous and misleading statements.

After Trump is shown publicly saying we’ll have a vaccine “relatively soon,” Fauci notes this is accurately if it’s taken as “relative” to the entire history of Earth. To the president’s assertion that the COVID-19 tests are “beautiful,” Pitt’s Fauci says that’s only if your idea of beauty is “having a cotton swab tickle your brain.” He also translates Trump saying that anyone will be able to get a test as, “almost no one.” The examples were numerous, including this week’s injecting-disinfectant debacle, to which Fauci could only touch his face in response.

Pitt then broke character, thanking the real Dr. Fauci for “your calm and your clarity in this unnerving time.” He also thanked “medical workers and first responders for being on the front line,” and officially kicked off the episode with “Live, Kinda, From All Across America, It’s Saturday Night.”

NOTABLE SKETCHES/PERFORMANCES: “What Up With That” is back! The sketch that finally gave Kenan Thompson the recognition he had long deserved returned for the social distancing era. Thompson’s Diondre Cole hosted from home, with Melissa Villasenor and Ego Nwodim dancing in matching blue dresses and special guests Charles Barkley and DJ Khaled weighing in (kinda), all from their respective homes.

The sketch has lost none of its charm, as Diondre talked and sang about social distancing, with fast-paced editing of the sketch’s many elements standing in for its usual busy flare. Barkley and Khaled were cut off, if they got two words in at all, while Diondre sang over them. Jason Sudeikis danced in his red track suit, and Bill Hader’s Lindsey Buckingham sat off to the side, never speaking. Hader wasn’t really there, as his clip was clearly an older one. It’s uncertain if the same went for Sudeikis and for Fred Armisen, who played a flute in a flowing wig. Shout out as well to Cecily Strong as “Quarantina, the sexy siren of social distancing,” who sang a disco number about getting drunk alone at home; “Howie Hot Wheels and the Lego Kid,” a brief dancing appearance by Mikey Day and his son; and a very busy graphics department, presenting lots of dancing animals and digital confetti. (I didn’t count, but I’m pretty sure Mikey Day’s son had more appearances in this episode than certain cast members.)

“In Depth with Brian Sutter” found Day as newsman Brian Sutter, reporting at home with COVID-19 using the phone of his teenage daughter, who messes with her dad by placing silly filters over his face as he talks. We see Day try to talk seriously about the federal government’s deficiencies during this crisis as he appears with cartoon googly eyes, a Pirate hat, missing teeth, and then, as he admonishes lockdown protestors, becomes a banana.

Pete Davidson rapped about missing everyone and being tired of quarantine – the line “I miss my friends” includes blink or you’ll miss them cameos from John Mulaney and Judd Apatow – and his expression of our national boredom soon finds Sandler, wearing an underwear mask, joining in from his own quarantine central, rapping about how he’s “baking my own bread, and it tastes like shit.” Both men include their families in the video, Schneider appears just outside Sandler’s front door, and Davidson’s mom and Sandler’s daughter get director credit for this video that expressed what much of the country is feeling.

Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon played grocery store workers highlighting the unwanted items that, as soap and toilet paper fly off the shelves, are still “extremely in stock,” including Frozen Hawaiian Pizza, Mint Pringles, wine from Missouri, Dasani water, Impossible Lobster and Pepsi Crab. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCpf0LNYsYA) McKinnon returned later in the episode, with her cat playing various cats, for “Whiskers R We,” now online, with only the bottom of the barrel cats remaining for adoption.

Thompson appeared as Big Papi for “Big Dominican Lunch,” a cooking show from his kitchen. He showed us how to make Dominican dishes with items you just happen to have around the house – which were ingredients no one has around the house – and continued his tradition of odd sponsors, such as “Esploded Can of Beans,” and the “Pure Hell” stand-in for Purell. Also, rapper Bad Bunny appeared as Big Papi’s cousin, Big Bunny, who can provide you with “Big Ass Pots” as well as sweatpants. Later in the episode, Thompson also put in an appearance as OJ Simpson – “America’s Dad,” as he calls himself – talking about how, in the age of coronavirus, people react to seeing him out and about with fear.

Fineman starred in a fake Airbnb ad, playing both the professional woman going slowly insane as her three-day Airbnb guest is now stuck there due to the quarantine, and the obnoxious Scandinavian guest who’s taken over her house. Fineman plays strong characters, and it will be interesting to see how her standing on the show will have risen due to her work here once SNL returns to the studio.

With every cast member filming on their own, though, many sketches were singular showcases for specific cast members to show what they can do. Chris Redd got an impressive one as a man furloughed from prison, trying to arrange a hook-up, but finding that our current situation doesn’t lend itself well to that, and Heidi Gardner appeared as Paul Rudd’s long lost cousin “Pretty” Mandy, who couldn’t accept the fact that he’s grown up even though she hadn’t seen him since he was seven years old. Villasenor played a woman on an imaginary date, and Kyle Mooney wrote a song slagging people who put you on the spot for forgetting their name. I can relate.

Also worth a mention: the slow music, emotional, “we’re here for you” commercial for PornHub.

WEEKEND UPDATE: Oof. Telling jokes into the void does not work. Weekend Update needs to bring back the virtual audience from last episode, or find a new, more casual format. Also, they should ditch the green screen. Jost’s head looked like it was chopped off on the side.

Davidson also appeared from home to talk about his situation in Staten Island, where washing your hands all day is known as “coming out of the closet.” He talked about NYC’s sex advice pamphlet, which advised against kissing, and gave advice about anal sex. He ended his bit by screaming, “It’s weird without an audience!” On this, he’s exactly right.

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.

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