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New Dad John Mulaney on SNL: These 4 Moments Crushed

From a killer opening monologue to a skit about COVID confusion, Mulaney was on fire.

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Credit: NBC

Although John Mulaney has been one of the reigning kings of dad humor, up until very recently, he has not been an actual father. All of that changed very recently as Mulaney and his girlfriend Olvia Munn welcomed his son Malcolm three months ago. And, prior to that, Mulaney spent the majority of 2021 getting sober and clean. Like a lot of men, breaking bad habits and embracing fatherhood tend to happen close together, but for Mulaney, those events were really close together.

On February 26, 2022, Mulaney hosted SNL for the fifth time in his career and didn’t’ shy away from getting sober or being a new dad. And the results were, quite possibly, Mulaney’s best Saturday Night Live gig yet. Here are the best moments.

John Mulaney’s Opening Monologue

After a touching cold open in which the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York sang a “Prayer for Ukraine,” Mulaney launched into an excellent new standup bit that covered everything from January 6, guilt about his former drug dealer, and why his infant son’s love of dangerous pacifiers is so relatable.

COVID Diner Discussion

SNL got very real with this hilarious sketch, in which reasonable people start to question all the confusing mixed messages everyone has had to deal with in the two years of the pandemic. The understated moment where Heidi Garnder uses the Thanos glove to snap herself out of existence probably takes the cake.

Nickelodeon Show

This excellent sketch takes us back to the days when Nickelodeon hadn’t quite perfected that slime and teenagers said offensive things to each other constantly. If you’re nostalgic for the year 1980, this sketch will make you maybe reconsider those feelings. Granted, this is all a joke, but is it really that far off?

Good Variant

Paul Rudd, John Mulaney, and Al Roker (???!!!) crash the latest digital short from the Please Don’t Destroy guys. This time, new breaks that there’s a variant of COVID that totally rocks. Oh, and Pokémon are real. This sketch is ridiculous but, watching Al Roker bring in a giant subway sandwich is somehow uplifting as hell.

Check out the rest of the SNL highlights on Peacock or YouTube.

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