You may have thought that, having collectively survived the hagiographic indulgence of Saturday Night Live‘s SNL50 self-celebration last year, we might have seen the other side of the long-running sketch series celebrating itself for a minute. You would be wrong, as NBC has just announced a new digital short series, The Rundown, in which SNL cast members both past and current attempt to build the best-possible episode of the series from its whole five-decade run, using as their template the production rundown that forms the spine of any given episode of the show.
Fittingly, the series kicked off this week with Colin Jost (and his little gold chain), who tackled the first moment the audience sees in every episode of Saturday Night Live: The cold open. To be fair, Jost has the credentials to make the pick, having served as a writer—and often head writer—on the series for more than 20 years at this point, including writing a vast number of those high-energy introductory sketches himself. And while we might lightly mock SNL for going back to the nostalgia well so soon, Jost does deliver a pretty good primer on the art of getting audiences psyched to watch some sketch, dating all the way back to “Wolverines,” the extremely silly John Belushi/Michael O’Donoghue bit that started the show’s very first episode. (Also, while we’re giving credit where it’s due, Jost didn’t go on to pick one of his own sketches for his actual entry, instead tapping a Seth Meyers/Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Sarah Palin sketch from 2013.) (Personally, we don’t know how you don’t go with the Will Ferrell “Strategery” debate sketch from season 26, which completely dominated the culture when it landed a month before the 2000 election, but to each their own.)
The Rundown is set to air through June, arriving (on Peacock, YouTube, and social media) on Wednesdays of the weeks where SNL isn’t rolling out new episodes. (The show next returns on April 4, with Jacks Black and White as host and musical guest.) Planned guests for future episodes include Dana Carvey, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, Colin Jost, Bowen Yang, Questlove, and more; no word yet on which former SNL associate will get to make their pick for the fabled 10-to-1 slot, where the show’s weirdest, and often most interesting, comedy tends to live. (Also, from the board in the Jost episode, it looks like they’re going to skip Weekend Update, which feels like a waste; maybe the ghost of Don Ohlmeyer is worried about airing too many old Norm Macdonald O.J. jokes.)
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