Inside NBC’s New Immersive Pop-Up, ‘The SNL50 Experience’

With just a couple weeks to go before Saturday Night Live’s 50th Anniversary special, NBC’s hype machine today introduced its latest SNL50 tie-in: a free, immersive “SNL Experience” in Rockefeller Center that’s designed to give fans a taste of what it’s like to host the legendary sketch show. LateNighter asked journalist Laura Bradley to take it for a test spin and she filed this report.

A wall of icy cold air slaps me in the face as soon as I emerge from the subway. It’s dark outside, and the Midtown streets are mostly barren, save for a steady stream of overworked delivery bikers and the occasional gaggle of European tourists. There’s a line wrapped around Ellen’s Stardust Diner, and every now and again, I lock eyes with a local whose scarf envelops the rest of their face, and that’s about it. 

Was Manhattan always like this at 8:30 on a Wednesday night? Is this further confirmation that the city has lost its edge and started tucking itself in for bed early? I shrug off the questions and wander into my destination, “Live from New York: The SNL50 Experience.” A co-creation of NBC and NVE Experience Agency hosted out of Rockefeller Center, this pop-up promises its guests the full Studio 8H experience. I’m here to find out exactly what that means.

A promotional event for SNL50: The Anniversary Special, which airs on February 16, “Live from New York: The SNL50 Experience” is an interactive exhibit designed to immerse fans in the TV production wonder that is Saturday Night Live. Admission is free, and the pop-up runs from Thursday, January 30 to Sunday, February 2, from 1 p.m. until 9 p.m. ET in Rockefeller Center. The event is currently sold out, but a first-come, first-serve digital standby line is available on-site. 

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

The waiting area has a “dressing room chic” kind of vibe — gray carpet, champagne walls, and doors with familiar names on them. Kenan Thompson. Bowen Yang. Ego Nwodim. It’s funny; I don’t consider myself an SNL “superfan” (this show’s fandom is the kind of community that sets a high bar for that word) but almost every photograph in this space tickles me with recognition. 

Looking at The Coneheads, I can practically hear my mother doing her best Dan Aykroyd and saying, “We come from France.” There’s Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton; Maya Rudolph as Oprah Winfrey; Tom Hanks playing Celebrity Jeopardy! with “Sean Connery,” aka Darrell Hammond; Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer hosting the fake NPR show “The Delicious Dish.” Chris Farley’s Matt Foley suit sits in a corner by the door into the actual “Experience,” beckoning us in.

Am I more of a fan than I thought, I wonder, or is SNL the kind of thing that permeates the American mind through osmosis? No time to think about that now. It’s my group’s turn to go in, and one of our guides is playing the hell out of his part, asking my tour group, “Oh, you didn’t get an email with your script?” Screw it. In the words of a certain former Fox News host, “We’ll do it live!”

From here, “The SNL50 Experience” begins to feel a lot like getting shot out of a cannon in a tube top. Each time we arrive at a new zone, our guides have an average of 15 seconds to tell us what we’re going to be doing. “I’ll let you know when it’s time to go,” they say, one second before someone inevitably looks over and says, “We’re ready.” 

Who’s we?, I think to myself, because I’m definitely not ready. But that is, of course, the point. For all the delusions I’ll admit to holding, I’ve never watched someone host SNL and thought to myself, “I could do better than that.” The SNL50 Experience feels designed to confirm that insight in the funniest way possible. 

In the first room, we’re given about 3 seconds to pick a prop and take one of the show’s famous bumper photos. After a frantic search for the little card with the QR code that I was told not to lose and therefore immediately lost, I pick the red rotary phone and try to figure out what to do with my face: What would be funny? 

As someone who spends half her day making weird faces at her boyfriend from the other end of the couch, the panic-inducing blank that fills my mind both shocks and embarrasses me. I don’t quite land on an answer before the camera flashes. I tell myself that that, in and of itself, is kind of funny, but I’m not really sure. 

Next, my group of four lines up to take turns staging our big entrance at the top of the show. Our guide urges us to really “ham it up,” and as each of us goes in, he quietly cheers us on. These are the kind of people you need in showbiz. Somehow, I do better at this than I did with the photo. At least, I think I do; once again, my mind becomes an abyss of white noise the moment I step in front of a camera. All I can remember is my name, how to breathe, and how to walk. People really do this with an audience?

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

Once we’re “backstage,” the jitters begin to cool. We’re surrounded by notes and ephemera, writer’s desks littered with cue cards and paint cans. On one of the desks, an “Advice to Staff” sign reads, “If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.” It’s immersive and engaging, and we have just enough time to take everything in before it’s time to move on. We take turns reading a few lines off of cue cards, and of course, the last of them is the most familiar: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” 

During a “commercial break,” our guide ushers us all into little “quick change” cubicles made from black curtains, where we wait for our next challenge. Shielded for a moment from my own overstimulation, I check myself out in what turns out to be the world’s most flattering full-length mirror. The respite is short-lived. 

Now, it’s time to do our best “Weekend Update.” Our guide is saying something about “sight lines” and “framing,” but in my delirium, he mostly sounds like an adult in a Peanuts movie: mwop mwop “sightlines, mwop mwop “framing,” mwop mwop Michael Che wants a reorder on these jokes.” 

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

Apparently, that last one is my job. A couple of us rearrange joke cards while the other two do their best to read off of cue cards. There’s a fake cocktail on the desk where Colin Jost usually sits, and I’m shocked at how many times my lizard brain urges me to pick it up as though it’s real. 

That’s the thing about The SNL Experience. The rushing and disorientation are all part of the bit from the get-go. The chaos of SNL is part of the lore, and we’re here to live it. Conveniently, the rushed atmosphere will also allow our guides to usher as many fans through here as humanly possible.

The next waiting area is my personal favorite: the prop room. It’s littered with industrial shelves full of familiar items like Colon Blow, the Dune popcorn bucket, Andy Samberg’s Shy Ronnie wig, and the box from “D*ck in a Box.” My group mates and I are ooh-ing and aah-ing, shuffling past one another to see everything, and for a moment, I feel like a kid on a field trip.

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

It turns out that last object was a preview of our next activity: strapping a giant box onto our bodies and dancing like we’re in the actual “D*ck in a Box” digital short. 

This is by far the easiest challenge, although I once again take about 30 seconds just to find my curséd little QR card. I’m tempted to go into diva mode and shout that I simply cannot work under these conditions, but there’s simply no time. I dance like the little puppet I am, disentangle myself from the box, and scurry to the next room, QR code in hand.

The hair and make-up area is a gallery of wigs and plasticine models of SNL stars’ faces. Vanities line the wall, lighting up the room with their illuminated mirrors. A run of show is plastered to one of them, but I don’t have time to read it before we wander into our next room, the “Wayne’s World” set. Apparently we’re going to film a little music video. Just one problem: They want us to sing. I can barely stifle a cackle when one of my fellow dilettantes asks, “Is it imperative that one of us do that?”

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

Our band is a hilarious but pitiful sight: three tambourine players, one guitarist, and absolutely no one at the mic. For some reason, the guitar is functional, but the tambourines are not.

There’s a lot of confused babbling and not a lot of time, and somehow, when the camera starts rolling, a miracle happens: We all sing. It’s amazing what a little peer pressure can do. As with each task before it, it’s a little embarrassing, extremely humbling, and also a bit exhilarating. That’s the thing about improv. Half the pleasure of it is feeling your brain turn off while instinct takes over. Each room separates us all a little bit more from our egos and self-judgment. Every step grounds us a little more in our creativity, our nostalgia, and our joy.

… And then, it all ends with drinks in the Five-Timers Club—an emerald green room with a brown leather couch, a bar, and pictures from SNL’s past. Exit through the gift shop, get lost trying to find a way out of Rockefeller Center, and you’re done. 

Walking home, I find myself thinking about what New York felt like when I first moved to the city. My odyssey through Rockefeller Center has spat me out onto a random block in Midtown, and for a moment, I’m disoriented — unsure which train will get me back to Brooklyn the fastest. Grand Central will be the fastest way home, but I don’t take the street entrance to the subway. 

Instead, I wander through Grand Central itself, through the doors that inspired SNL’s homebase set, and take a moment to stare up at the constellations painted onto its ceiling. I’ve seen it before, but the magic never gets old. It’s everything I thought it would be when I was a young girl watching shows like SNL from my living room. The streets might be empty on this dark, wintery evening, but some things feel exactly the same. Live from New York, it’s Wednesday night.

1 Comment

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  1. DrBOP says:

    That was BEEE-yoot-aFULL!
    Merci beaucoup! ;>)