‘SNL’ Alums Pete Davidson, John Mulaney Reveal How They Used To Placate Hosts After Bad Monologues: “They’d Tank 8 Times Out Of 10”
Pete Davidson and John Mulaney shared insights about their experiences on 'Saturday Night Live' during a recent panel discussion. They discussed how they would comfort hosts after unsuccessful monologues, often lying to boost their confidence. The conversation highlighted the challenges of performing live comedy and the dynamics between hosts and the audience.
- ▪Davidson and Mulaney revealed they often reassured hosts after poor performances.
- ▪Mulaney noted that many hosts struggled to connect with the audience during their monologues.
- ▪Davidson admitted to fabricating details about the audience to make hosts feel better.
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| Original publisher | Deadline |
| Canonical URL | https://deadline.com/2026/05/snl-pete-davidson-john-mulaney-bad-host-monologues-bombing-1236920029/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 23 May 2026 21:23:42 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-23T21:37:27.787Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-23T21:37:27.787Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 4RZFPjbFyZ6x · 3 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Pete Davidson / John Mulaney Getty Images Saturday Night Live alums Pete Davidson and John Mulaney did a bit of acting themselves while interfacing with the big names hosting the late-nighter week to week, revealing during a recent panel conversation how they would placate celebrities that bombed their opening monologues. During the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, Mulaney reflected on his time as a writer on the Lorne Michaels-helmed juggernaut from 2008 to 2013. “When I was 25, I’d tell Oscar-winning hosts — I’d write their monologue and be like, ‘You’re gonna say all that, it’s gonna go great,’ and they’d tank 8 times out of 10,” he said, as Davidson laughed and admitted he, too, would tell hosts they “crushed it” even when they didn’t.
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