Saturday Night Live Getting 50th Anniversary Special in February

Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025 and to mark the occasion, the iconic sketch show is getting a live primetime special. On Friday, NBC announced that it has scheduled a three-hour primetime special on Sunday, February 16, 2025, that will celebrate the Lorne Michaels-created show. The special will be the close to what the network is calling a “celebratory weekend” for SNL. Details about what the primetime special will entail were not yet available.

Michaels has previously said that Saturday Night Live would celebrate its milestone 50th anniversary next February, explaining last January that plans were already being made.

“We’re doing the 50th anniversary show in February of ’25, so I will definitely be there for that, and definitely be there until that, and sometime before that we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do,” Michaels said last year.

Who Is Hosting Saturday Night Live This Week?

Currently, Saturday Night Live is in its 49th season and there are just two episodes left. This week will see the return of one of the show’s alums for their third hosting appearance. This week, Saturday, May 11th, Maya Rudolph will return to host Saturday Night Live for the penultimate episode of Season 49. Joining Rudolph for her third time hosting this week will be musical guest Vampire Weekend.  Next week, host Jake Gyllenhaal will close out Season 49 with musical guest Sabrina Carpenter before the series breaks for the summer.

Who is in the Saturday Night Live cast?

Cast members for Saturday Night Live season 49 include almost the entire cast from season 48 of SNL. Returning stars include Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson, Punkie Johnson, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. Featured players that are part of the cast include returning stars Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker, plus the show’s only fully new cast member for the year, newcomer Chloe Troast. The comedy troupe Please Don’t Destroy, made up of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, are also a recurring part of the series.

Saturday Night Live Season 49 is ongoing now with new episodes airing on both NBC and Peacock, starting Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET. All 48 seasons of Saturday Night Live are also now streaming on Peacock.