Adam Sandler Will Host SNL For The Very First Time

Adam Sandler, a former SNL cast member, will host the show for the first time. Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer April 5, 2019

Surely, you would think, Adam Sandler has hosted Saturday Night Live at least eight times. After all, the comedian who gave birth to the greatest artistic achievement of our time — “The Hanukkah Song” — is heavily associated with the late night sketch comedy show.

And yet. You would be wrong.

Sandler, a boyish comic-turned-long-suffering-dad-type, is slated to host Saturday Night Live for the very first time on May 4. The beloved funnyman, — even though, “50 First Dates” is pretty racist in retrospect — will make his hosting debut almost 30 years after he first joined the famed show’s writing staff.

In 1990 Sandler was hired as a writer by SNL, only to transition to cast-member the next year for a four-year reign that vaulted him to stardom. Though his time at SNL ended, he revealed years later, with his firing in 1995, he starred in “Billy Madison” that same year and seems to have made out pretty well for himself.

Recently the star of the critically successful “The Meyerowitz Stories,” on Netflix, Sandler will bring his comedy career full circle with his performance in May. He’ll be joined by musical guest Shawn Mendes, a 20-year-old pop star. Here’s hoping for a synth-y dance version of “The Hanukkah Song.”

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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