While Saturday Night Live’s actual 50th anniversary is October 11, the long-running variety sketch series put on quite a show with the anniversary special that earlier this year amid the 2025 TV schedule. NBC pulled out all the stops for the nearly three-hour event that paid tribute to SNL’s past and present. There were also plenty of stars on hand. From the outside looking in, he event seemed pretty cool, though Andy Samberg dropped an F-bomb while recalling how stressful it was.
Andy Samberg and fellow members of The Lonely Island came together for SNL50: The Anniversary Special in February for a digital short entitled “Anxiety.” Not only was the video a perfect representation of working on the show, but it was also perfect for the special. Samberg reflected on the special while appearing on the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend and admitted how he truly felt throughout the evening. Needless to say, months later, it sounds like Samberg is still anxious over it:
It’s stressful to be at the 50th. Make no mistake. Like, you love it, you would miss it, but you’re like, ‘It’s fuckin’ everyone who’s ever worked here is all here.’ And like, ‘Who’s gonna say hi to me? Who’s not gonna say hi to me? Who do I say hi to? Am I gonna be in the show? If I’m in the show too much, do I like what I’m doing? Am I pissed about that? If I’m not in the show, are they ignoring me?’
Even though the “Anxiety” video was pre-recorded and not live, Samberg and co. still had a lot of work to do on it. Plus, I can't even imagine being in his shoes and watching various stars react to the video in real time at the anniversary event. The mere presence of so many stars also sounds downright daunting as the does the notion of not knowing whether a person will be involved in any more of the show. All in all, just thinking about it is giving me anxiety. However, as challenging as it may have been for Samberg, it seems the experience was par for the course:
There’s no winning when you go back into that because it’s such a vortex of, like, everything that’s ever happened there. So I was kind of hoping it would sort of be in the spirit of that, also.
Andy Samberg was a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2005 to 2012, and he and The Lonely Island were behind some of the best SNL Digital Shorts. With that, it was unsprising that Samberg and his cohorts/childhood friends, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, were able to deliver such a clever short for the anniversary.
As stressful as the situation may have been for Samberg, it sounds like he did have some truly memorable moments throughout the night. He previously spoke about getting to speak to Billy Crystal and Eddie Murphy amid the festivities. The gravity of the occasion was also not lost on Samberg, who took pleasure in the event's "50 years in the making" tagline.
Now that the special has come and gone, it’s unknown whether Andy Samberg will make another appearance on SNL for the upcoming 51st season, but I think he is one of many stars who need to host again. Saturday Night Live is known for pulling out surprises, so it’s certainly not impossible that he'll make a return, even despite the anxiety and stress it involves. For now, fans can watch the anniversary special and all 50 seasons with a Peacock subscription.
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