JM McNab
Other than acute behind-the-scenes anxiety, one of Saturday Night Live’s longest-running traditions is the “Five-Timers Club,” a prestigious clique for celebrities who have hosted the show at least five times.
But it turns out it’s all a lie. Wake up sheeple!
The Five-Timers Club obviously began as a joke, part of Tom Hanks’ opening monologue during his fifth SNL appearance in 1990. The mere suggestion that hosting SNL five times was a benchmark worthy of a membership card, a luxurious robe and access to “one of the most exclusive clubs in the world” was meant to be laughable. I mean, the first sketch literally finds Jon Lovitz taking lunch orders and throwing out Ralph Nader.
According to Robert Smigel, the inspiration for the sketch, which he co-wrote for Conan O’Brien, was Hanks’ impression of Lorne Michaels waxing poetically about what it’s like to host SNL each time. “I know Lorne says it’s his idea, but it was me making fun of Tom’s impression of Lorne,” Smigel explained.
Hanks, on the other hand, remembered things slightly differently, attributing the idea to Michaels: “I think Lorne said, ‘Well, why don’t we do something like, you get to join a select club?’ And that was that.”
But even though the sketch was ridiculous, Hanks did still feel a sense of accomplishment. “There was definitely a truth to the idea that I felt I was entering a pantheon of Saturday Night Live legends,” the Oscar winner admitted.
In the years that followed, the wholly fictitious, increasingly less-exclusive Five-Timers Club became a touchstone for the show. Five-Timers sketches are now basically mandatory any time a host crosses that threshold.
It doesn’t even need to be tied to a sketch. When Paul Rudd’s fifth outing as host was effectively canceled in December 2021, due to a surge in COVID, Hanks and Tina Fey still showed up to “induct” him into the club.
And when Emma Stone received her Five-Timers jacket in 2023, Fey and Candice Bergen remarked that it was a great moment in “SNL herstory,” making it seem like a genuine honor, not just a comedic bit that, originally, was as much about honoring hosts as it was about dunking on Chevy Chase and Joe Piscopo.
But, weirdly, even though the show mostly frames this ceremony as a bona fide tribute to SNL legends, the whole thing is a sham. Obviously the physical club where Elliott Gould spends most of his time doesn’t exist, but apparently the hosts don’t even get to keep their Five-Timers jackets. As Stone recently revealed on The Tonight Show, “They don’t really give you a jacket.”
So much for SNL herstory!
“I don’t want to blow-up their spot, because, again, it’s my favorite place,” Stone told Jimmy Fallon. “But they don’t want you to keep the jacket! It’s like, a thing!”
Stone, understandably, assumed that she would be keeping the jacket. After all, the Academy Awards didn’t force her to hand over her Oscars before leaving the building. But she was told that it was just to wear during the monologue. Still, Stone insisted, “I was like, ‘No. I’ll be taking it with me, I’ll be wearing it to (the) after-party, and I’ll be taking it home.’”
So she was forced to steal the jacket. “Now it’s in my closet,” Stone bragged. “That’s right! But they also know where to find me."
Making this even more unjust, the most recent Five-Timers sketch, featuring Kristen Wiig, revealed that Michaels has been handing out jackets “like free maxi pads” to celebrities who in no way hosted five times. So they made extra jackets for Jon Hamm and Matt Damon to wear on TV, but won’t give them to the performers who are supposedly being honored?
Maybe the show is hoarding these props just in case Lorne Michaels gets the go-ahead to make The Five-Timers Club: The Movie.
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