Saturday Night Live rarely makes it through a live show entirely unscathed. The Season 51 premiere with Bad Bunny delivered at least three slipups—the kind that remind fans the show’s live-wire chaos is half the fun.
From a rogue costume to a shaky set and a clock that lost track of time, it was a return to the kind of endearing imperfection that’s kept the show human for half a century. Here are this season’s inaugural SNL flubs:
Dobby Comes Undone
The night’s most obvious (and acknowledged) flub came during Bowen Yang’s Weekend Update feature as Dobby the House Elf. After accidentally revealing that his “master” was Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, Yang-as-Dobby pretended to punish himself by banging his head against the Update desk—a Dobby trademark—and in doing so accidentally popped his costume open.
“Oh, Dobby’s come undone,” Yang ad-libbed as the audience broke into laughter. “Sorry! My fatigues are not well-made.” Yang spent much of the rest of the bit fighting a losing battle with his costume, clutching the fabric with one hand as he vaulted over the desk to bang his head against the camera.
Demons Indeed
Every episode of SNL is an act of live choreography, but in the “Kpop Demon Hunters” sketch, the scenery seemed to lose its balance. Moments before Bowen Yang’s entrance as KPop Demon Hunters villain Jinu, the backdrop outside the window gave a visible wobble.
Set wobble, of course, is one of SNL’s oldest recurring characters. Between quick scene changes and tight quarters on the Studio 8H stage, the show’s walls are often known to tremble and sway at inopportune moments. It’s part of the visual language of live television—the kind of imperfection that proves the chaos is real.
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Off the Clock
SNL‘s replica Grand Central Terminal clock—the four-faced set piece seen at both the top of the monologue and at the end of goodnights—appeared to be running on its own time zone this week. In both of its on-air appearances, the hands were frozen at 10:55 p.m., over a half an hour before the show actually went live.
The clock doesn’t actually tick to Studio 8H time—it’s powered by four AA batteries, a bit of old-school engineering that’s kept it running for years. Normally, the hands are adjusted before airtime, but this week the batteries (or someone’s checklist) appear to have given out.
What did we miss? If you happened to catch any live flubs, drop us a line and we’ll add them to this list.
