Steve Martin and Tina Fey welcome John Mulaney to the Five-Timers Club on Saturday Night Live

John Mulaney had some tough competition as he tried to enter the Five-Timers Club when he hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend.

The 39-year-old comedian and former SNL writer had to impress other Fiver-Timers Club members — including Steve Martin, Tina Fey and Candice Bergen — all of whom weren’t sure he would make a good member.

The latest five-time host, Paul Rudd, even returned to celebrate Mulaney’s accomplishment, though he was forced to give up his ceremonial smoking jacket to let the comedian in to the intimate group.

John’s admission was set up by a Please Don’t Destroy sketch in which he guest starred.

New writers Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy were shocked to read a news story announcing a new Covid-19 variant, but it turned out to be a positive development. 

‘They’re calling it a miracle,’ says a TV news anchor played by Mulaney. ‘It’s called the Gelvini variant, and it doesn’t make you sick, it just makes you feel dope.’

‘It comes from the sandy beaches of Cabo San Lucas,’ one explains.

‘Dude, having Gelveni is like having a drink with an old friend,’ another writer enthuses.

They even see a new story about Anthony Fauci celebrating at a club.

Paul Rudd interrupts the party to announcing somberly that he tested positive for the new variant.

‘It actually made me sick… at playing synth!’ she shouted before shredding on a synthesizer that suddenly materialized.

The Today Show’s Al Roker then made a surprise appearance with a massive sub sandwich.

‘Did somebody say hungry?!’ he said as soon as he burst in the room.

‘Fauci just put out a statement. He just hooked up with Saweetie!’ they joked.  

Then they learned that a new symptom was that everyone got ‘luscious, long locks,’ and they suddenly all had long hair.

More bizarrely, they learned that — somehow — Pokemon had come to life because of the new variant.

They briefly freaked out over footage of the monsters storming Washington, D.C., only to relax when they saw it wasn’t a threat.

‘Oh wait y’all, they’re just there to pass awesome legislation!’ one writer added.

The sketch ended abruptly, revealing that it was being shown on a TV in a study while Steve Martin, Candice Bergen and Paul Rudd watched in their Five-Timers Club smoking jackets.

John entered the room to claim his spot while Paul griped that all the SNL players dropped out of his Five-Timers episode because they had Covid.

‘So what, I have Covid now,’ joked Steve. ‘I got it from the queen — humble brag!’

Candice admitted she didn’t even know who Mulaney was.

‘Well, Candice, you wouldn’t know me, but if you have a niece or a son who is bad at sports, they might,’ he replied.

Then Paul Rudd exited and Tina Fey entered the room sipping a cocktail made from ‘Justin Timberlake’s tequila, Dan Aykroyd’s vodka and Tracy Morgan’s club soda, which is aquarium water.’

‘Disgusting. Dan Aykroyd’s vodka?’ joked Mulaney.

He joked they were with People’s Sexiest Man Alive as Paul was seen reading his cover story in the corner. 

But then Elliott Gould was revealed to be sitting on the other side of the room, and he was Chest Hair Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Steve revealed to John that he could only join the club if someone retired from it.

‘Too bad no one here is at retirement age,’ he said in a perfect deadpan, adding, ‘I have the child of a 38-year-old.’

‘What we’re trying to say is, this has become not special,’ he added, just as former SNL writer Conan O’Brien burst through the door.

‘Did somebody say “not special?”‘ he asked, before convincing John that it was special because the two of them were hideous and never meant to be on TV.

Paul then surrendered his Five-Timers jacket to John.

‘And one more thing,’ Conan shouted as he started to recite the ‘Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!’ opening.

‘Conan, we did that already,’ they said, but he wouldn’t be deterred.

‘I’m doing it anyway!’ he shouted proudly. 

The episode opened with a Kate McKinnon and Cecily strong introducing a somber performance by the Ukranian Chorus Dumka of New York, which was followed by a much more subdued ‘Live from New York, it’s Saturday night’ than usual.

John Mulaney — who did a stint in rehab amid a battle with substance abuse — appeared on stage afterward, joking that ‘It’s wonderful to be in a place that has always emphasized sobriety and mental health.’

He referenced his new baby son with his ‘girlfriend’ Olivia Munn, though he didn’t mention anything else about their relationship, and he joked about how he learned that his drug dealer wasn’t actually a dealer and only bought drugs to sell him safer things than he might otherwise get on the street.

In the first sketch of the night, Kenan Thompson played an attorney representing Melissa Villaseñor, who had had her arms broken after her friend’s pet monkey mauled her.

But things weren’t looking good for them when it was revealed they were taping an episode of Monkey Judge. Mulaney entered, dressed as a monkey in a judge’s robes to oversee the case.

Despite being an ape, he mostly spoke impeccable English with some blemishes.

He interrupted Kenan’s arguments to ‘throw sand to establish dominance,’ and he chastised Melissa for wearing a different hat then she usually wears when she approached the monkey that mauled her.

‘Let me get this right, you walked up to this monkey as a different shape and you expected, what? Him to be cool with that?’ he joked.

Cecily Strong played the defense attorney and won him over by presenting him with a tiny cake while wearing a protective helmet and face shield. 

But Kenan got the last laugh when he presented the judge with a raggedy stuffed animal for him to ‘violate.’

‘That side wins! That side wins!’ he declared. 

Cecily returned in the next sketch — a pretaped skit — as a woman buying an overly pricy dog food who chastised another pet owner (Heidi Gardner) for buying a cheaper (but still healthy) brand.

She read out the ingredients of the cheaper food aloud, feigning surprise at totally normal ingredients, before using some fuzzy math to claim that her fancier food was only slightly more expensive when using the per-day price.

John played her husband, and he freaked out at Heidi because her dog was in the shopping cart, pretending that it couldn’t walk because of its substandard food.

‘People like you should be hung in a public square!’ he shouted.

Cecily got increasingly deranged and whispered in Heidi’s ear while pretending it was her dog’s voice.

‘I want Blue River dog food, mama!’ she whispered.

‘We just saved that dog’s life!’ she shouted after Heidi was pressured into buying the. pricy food.

‘I think I’m finally ready to do it. I’m finally ready to make love to you,’ John added out of nowhere. ‘It’s working,’ he said, looking down at his pants.

‘We’ll go really slow,’ Cecily said to end the sketch.

John joined Kate McKinnon, Kenan, Aidy Bryant, Bowen Yang and Heidi in the next sketch as they played a group of friends dining out.

Kenan was the only one who wore a mask, and the rest pressured him to remove it.

They started to spout out half-informed opinions they had gathered from news stories about the effectiveness of mask and vaccine mandates, but they would grimace each time they started to share controversial opinions.

It got so tense that Aidy covered her face with her purse, and Heidi suddenly brought out an infinity gauntlet and snapped her finger, turning herself to dust. 

Kate concluded the sketch by asking, ‘We don’t’ have to wash our hands anymore, do we?’

‘I never did!’ John replied with a big grin. 

As with most Mulaney-hosted SNL episodes, he included a New York City–specific musical sketch.

He played a newsstand vendor in a subway station, while Chris Redd and Andrew Dismukes played people waiting in line.

Andrew didn’t want any of his food and instead wanted a churro from Melissa Villaseñor, which they warned him against. 

‘You sure you want to buy an unwrapped churro from a woman pushing a laundry cart that she’s holding with her bare hands with a Starbucks napkin?’ John joked.

Kenan then emerged as mole person to tell him what happens when you eat a churro from the subway via song.

‘Your butt will bleed,’ he sang. ‘Somehow you’ll know as soon as you chew that an hour before you a rat bit it too.’

Alex Moffat joined the fray as a flasher in a trench coat, with a pixelated box covering his privates. 

The sketch ended with Aidy Bryant emerging from the F train as ‘possibly the real Jesus Christ’ in a New York Islanders beer helmet.

The next sketch was a Nickelodeon behind-the-scenes special hosted by Chris Redd and Alex Moffat as Nick Cannon and Marc Summers, respectively.

They detailed the creation of slime back in the 1980s, but revealed in clips that the consistency took some time to get right.

Cecily played one former kid who got hit by a rock-hard blob of green slime, while Melissa got hit on the head when the bucket fell with it. 

When it was John’s turn to get slimed, he was shot with a blast of green liquid via an air cannon, which seemed to genuinely sting.

‘It feels like needles in my face!’ he screamed before getting hit again.

Kyle Mooney and Mikey Day then got slimed, but it kept on pouring so much that they could barely speak or breathe. 

John was still covered in slime as he introduced musical guest LCD Soundsystem.

Frontman James Murphy and the group put on a low-key performance of Thrills, a song dating from the group’s 2005 self-titled album.

They returned toward the end of the show to perform their better-known song Yr City’s a Sucker, which was also from their first album.

John closed out the episode with a sketch costarring Ego Nwodim, which he had previously done.

They again played romantic partners, and he worried that he wouldn’t fit in at her family’s reunion.

She tried to reassure him, but it turned out he didn’t need it, as he was even more keyed in to all the group dances her family did than she was.

He even arrived in the family’s T-shirt, which nobody bothered to tell her about.

Ego learned that John was already good friends with several cousins and uncles, almost making it seem like he knew her family better than she did.