‘SNL’ Crowd Was Filled With First Responders During Season 46 Premiere

Saturday Night Live returned this weekend, and there were some extraordinary guests in-studio. […]

October 4, 2020, 3:18pm

Saturday Night Live returned this weekend, and there were some extraordinary guests in-studio. After a series of “at home” episodes that featured cast members performing remotely, the SNL operation returned to Studio 8H inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The live audience of the New York City-based NBC variety show was also present, and first responders made up the main portion of the crowd.

Host Chris Rock gave a special shoutout to the floor-seated guests (who were tested for the novel coronavirus before the broadcast) during his opening monologue. After showing them off to the camera, Rock cracked a joke to note how special these essential workers are. He said, “They’re so good, we let people die tonight so they could see a good show.” Scroll through to see Rock’s monologue and the at-home viewers’ reactions to the first responder shoutout.

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Cheers to #SNL for bringing (masked) first responders to watch the live show tonight!
— Billie Jean King (@BillieJeanKing) October 4, 2020

First responders in the #SNL audience is awesome! Thank you for all you do. 👏👏👏 #ThankYou #SNLPremiere
— Deborah Beasley (@funnycat38) October 4, 2020

I love that there are first responders in the audience. Those folks definitely deserve a night off!
— Joanna (@PBandJOJO) October 4, 2020

I love that all of the SNL guests are first responders
— Jae (@jaeofsun) October 4, 2020

So happy to see SNL back. Got to LMAO at the 🍊💩 being made fun in some very funny skits. Weekend update & the office of changing names were hysterical. Thanks for filling audience with first responders.😂🤣😷🌊
— Carol’sHadEnough #RESIST (@CAROLsoBLUE) October 4, 2020