Melissa McCarthy Sings in SNL's Broadway All-Star Halftime Sketch
Back in Season 39, Melissa McCarthy hosted on February 1, 2024 — the night before Super Bowl XLVIII, when the Seattle Seahawks were playing the Denver Broncos and Bruno Mars and The Red Hot Chili Peppers were set as the halftime performers. SNL opened the show with "Broadway's All-Star Super Bowl Halftime Spectacular," a sketch that imagined a high-camp, Broadway-style replacement if a polar vortex kept the scheduled acts away.
It served as the night's cold open. The announcers — Jay Pharoah, Beck Bennett and Bobby Moynihan — introduced "the best and brightest of Broadway." The sketch played out as a full old-school musical number complete with sparkly jerseys. Taran Killam played then-Broncos player Peyton Manning, who had lost his confidence; the one person who could help him was "Mama Pass," played by McCarthy.