Courtesy of Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC
It's no secret that sometimes sketches don't make it to air when Saturday Night Live kicks off at 11:30pm. Thousands of ideas float in the heads of the show's writers all the time. Some make it past the table read, some only to dress rehearsal, some make it to the actual show but get cut for time. In the case of two sketches that aired on this weekend's episode hosted by John Mulaney, two in particular took almost a decade to make it to air. Back when Mulaney was a host on SNL, he wrote a bunch of sketches that never made it to air and apparently he felt two sketches in particular deserved better. It's a good thing he did, because they ended up being some of the funniest bits of the night because of their embracing of the absurd. Which the show's done particularly well recently. First up was "Diner Lobster" which involved an an elaborate Les Misérables about lobsters that should never be ordered in a Diner. Kenan Thompson portrayed said lobster (decked out as Jean Valjean), such a ridiculous a visual that it got Pete Davidson to break.
The second sketch, "Sitcom Reboot" focused on a re-booted body swap sitcom TV show that focused on the darker side of what would happened if a body swap really did happen.
All week long, Mulaney was on Instagram sharing some behind-the-scenes photos from his time as a writer on the show with some contextual photos. Shortly after the show aired, he stated that he co-wrote both sketches back in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Meaning those ideas were floating around in his head for a long time.
Also, Mulaney's shirt with the phrase "It's Not Rocket Problems" printed across it also made it on the air during the curtain call.