John Mulaney returned to Saturday Night Live Saturday night, bringing with him another of his elaborate New York-themed musical sketches—this time taking on the city’s newly approved ban on horse-drawn carriages in Central Park.
Mulaney played a Central Park carriage driver preparing to take two tourists (Marcello Hernández and Kam Patterson) on a ride through the park, potentially one of his last following the City Council’s vote to phase out the industry by 2028.
“Can you believe they passed a ban on horse-drawn carriages in New York City?” Mulaney asked his horse. “And for no reason at all except animal cruelty and human murders.”
What followed was a musical tour of some of the city’s more colorful characters, beginning with Veronika Slowikowska as a woman still struggling to finish the New York City Marathon, performing a parody of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl.
Tommy Brennan appeared as a pedicab driver who challenged Mulaney’s carriage driver to a showdown set to “Anything You Can Do” from Annie Get Your Gun, with the two competing over who could inflict more damage on unsuspecting pedestrians.
Other stops along the way included Mikey Day as an aggressively evangelical street preacher and Kenan Thompson leading a musical number about the ever-present cloud of marijuana smoke hanging over Manhattan.
The sketch also waded into New York politics, with James Austin Johnson playing a Park Slope admirer of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Jeremy Culhane appearing as a billionaire furious about the city’s proposed pied-à-terre tax. Their competing grievances were delivered to the tune of songs from West Side Story.
But one of the biggest surprises came when the tourists decided they’d had enough and wanted to return to New Jersey via the Lincoln Tunnel.
Not so fast, Mulaney warned. They’d have to contend with the Mary Todd Lincoln Tunnel—prompting a visit by Bowen Yang, dressed as the same Mary Todd Lincoln he’s currently portraying on Broadway in Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary!.
Yang’s appearance featured a parody of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls. In this version, the song became a warning about the impossibility of escaping Manhattan traffic.
The cameo marked Yang’s second appearance of the night. Earlier, the former cast member made his first return to SNL since leaving last December, playing disgraced former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in the show’s cold open.
Yang wasn’t the only familiar face to turn up. As Mulaney attempted to explain the complexities of the city’s transportation policies, Ashley Padilla‘s “Kathy” made an unexpected appearance.
The relentlessly irritating office worker had already returned earlier in the evening in a sequel to Padilla’s popular sketch from last April. That sketch saw Kathy interrupting her coworkers’ after-work drinks with her usual questions, including “We talking’ transpo?” when the subject turned to Thanksgiving travel.
Mulaney’s New York musicals have become a fixture of his SNL hosting appearances, dating back to his April 2018 debut, when Pete Davidson‘s decision to order seafood at a diner prompted a full-scale Les Misérables parody featuring Kenan Thompson as a singing lobster.
That sketch, “Diner Lobster,” was followed by “Bodega Bathroom” in 2019, “Airport Sushi” and “New York Musical” in 2020, “Subway Churro” in 2022, and “Port Authority Duane Reade” in 2024.
Mulaney also brought the concept to SNL‘s 50th anniversary special in February 2025, staging a star-studded version featuring Nathan Lane, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Scarlett Johansson, David Spade, Davidson, and a host of former cast members.
Watch the latest installment, “Central Park Horse & Carriage Ride” at the top of this post.
