“Old Friends” are ran into by kate mckinnon maya rudolph and kristen wiig make their “SNL” hosting debut
For the first time since leaving the cast of Saturday Night Live, Kate McKinnon returned to host; she wasn’t the only one to make a second appearance in Studio 8H.
“The highlight of returning here is undoubtedly seeing old friends,” McKinnon, 39, remarked midway through her inaugural speech on Saturday, December 16. “Redolph Maya and Wiig Kristen! Whoa, why are you in this place?
During the broadcast, former cast members Rudolph, 51, and Wiig, 50, joked that they “were just walking by” the set while sporting matching sparkly outfits. “It’s wonderful to be back and to see you again.
Wiig added, “[We have] so many memories.” “You know, I was in over 38,000 sketches here when I looked myself up on Wikipedia the other day, like I do every day.” Wikipedia “isn’t the most reliable” for some things, as McKinnon swiftly pointed out, but Wiig insisted that her entry—which mentioned that she is dating NFL player Travis Kelce and had 12 Grammy awards—was accurate. Wiig seemed to be making reference to Taylor Swift, who she had parodied on Saturday Night Live. Prior to their cameos on the SNL season 49 premiere in October, Kelce, 34, and Swift, 34, had been dating since this summer.) McKinnon recruited Wiig and Rudolph for more musical sketches later in the show. The trio, which now includes Bowen Yang, performed rejected Christmas tunes while portraying the members of ABBA. In a different skit, McKinnon, Wiig, and Rudolph sang and joked about working with actress Paula Pell on a tampon farm.
After joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2012, McKinnon was nominated for ten Emmy Awards, which she won in 2016 and 2017 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She left at the end of season 47 in May 2022. A creative reset resulted from the departure of several other long-running cast members at the same time, including Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, Alex Moffat, Kyle Mooney, Chris Redd, and Melissa Villaseñor.
