SNL Roasts Elon Musk, The Return of Hitler, and Everything Else We Want To Forget For Christmas in Cold Open Musical Number

Saturday Night Live kicked off the 8th episode of the new season with a musical number ticking through things we’d all like to block out for Christmas, like Elon Musk and Hitler’s new fans.

Comic legends Steve Martin and Martin Short were the guest hosts on this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live. Between the two of them, Martin and Short boast a total of 18 hosting appearances (15 for Steve Martin and 3 for Short), and Short clocked an additional two dozen appearances as a member of the cast in the mid-80s. Martin also made more than a dozen more appearances as a guest.

Brandi Carlile was the musical guest.

But before the Two-Thirds of the Three Amigos could begin their hosting stint, the cast of the long-running sketch show performed its 940th cold open, a long-running gag in which the show performs a parody — usually related to current events — that ends with performers breaking character and exclaiming “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

The very first cold open — on October 11, 1975 — lasted only 96 seconds and featured Chevy Chase uttering the catchphrase as a confused production assistant on a new show that was then called simply NBC’s Saturday Night. Early cold opens — colds open? — featured Chase performing a pratfall, often in character as then-President Gerald Ford.

It has evolved into an often elaborate and anticipated part of the show that can run closer to ten minutes, and almost always parody current events. Although often uneven in quality and a magnet for jabs from critics, the cold open is also often the most talked-about part of the show.

This week’s cold open featured a much less antic cast than usual, crooning their way through a Christmas song listing all the traumas and anxieties we’d all probably like to block out for the holidays, with topical references to Musk and the Kanye West implosion.

Watch above via NBC’s Saturday Night Live.