As promised, “Saturday Night Live” returned to the air this weekend for the first time in more than a month, and in radically altered form.
Gone are the audience, the sets at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the in-person cast interaction. Following the example of the mid-quarantine talk shows, “SNL” was being performed from the homes of its stars. And the “Live” in the title was a misnomer; as surprise host Tom Hanks admitted, all 90 minutes had been recorded earlier.
By putting Hanks out front, “SNL” deployed not just a longtime friend of “SNL,” but also the most famous coronavirus patient in the world who doesn’t lead a European nation. Looking and sounding fit — with an almost bald head that he hastened to note was for a movie role — Hanks explained from his kitchen what viewers were in for while offering plenty of shtick.
“This is the first time I’ve worn anything other than sweatpants since March 11,” Hanks said, feigning that he’d forgotten how to operate the buttons on his suit.
Recalling he had been diagnosed in Australia, he explained that when one’s temperature is checked Down Under in Celsius, “36 is fine; 38 is bad. So basically it’s how Hollywood treats female actors.”
Hanks even worked in a little audience Q&A routine, cutting away to himself pretending to be other people: a Frenchman and an Australian.
