Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl

SNL 51 Midweek: Ariana Grande Knows How Bad NYC Winters Can Get

In this SNL 51 Midweek Sketch, host Ariana Grande adds the layers after getting an invite to check out the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

With host Ariana Grande and musical guest Cher ready to help NBC's Saturday Night Live wrap up 2025 with this weekend's holiday show, it's time to officially kick off the promo week with a look at the SNL Midweek Sketch. In the clip above, Grande gets an invite from SNL star Ashley Padilla to throw snowballs at Ben Marshall and check out the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. From there, Grande embarks on a mission to bundle herself up to the point where there's probably three inches of clothing between her skin and the outside air. We don't want to spoil where it goes, but we will say that we're not surprised by who has a great view of the tree.

SNL Season 51: Live From New York, It's Saturday Night…AI?

When you hear that there's buzz rumbling out of a recent SNL show, you hope it's for something like the "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch or Melissa McCarthy cleaning the passenger window of a car with her breasts in anger. You don't want the buzz to be about SNL using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create background images for "Weekend Update." Unfortunately, it seems like the latter is the case this week. During a headline/joke about Donald Trump holding a rally in support of the U.S. economy at a casino in the Poconos, Colin Jost hit the joke with, "Which is kind of weird to say: the future is brighter than ever. Isn't that right? Woman on oxygen playing the nickel slots."

Behind Jost, an image of a woman on oxygen playing a slot machine appeared, with both the speed/accuracy of the image and what many are calling instances of "AI slop" being called out. For their part, Deadline Hollywood shared that it took a screenshot of the image and ran it through Hive's AI detector, which brought back a 99.9% probability that the image was AI-generated. A spokesperson for SNL did not respond to DH's request for a comment.

The Season 51 cast includes Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Marcello Hernandez, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang, along with current featured players Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline. Joining them are newcomers Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, and Veronika Slowikowska.

New writers for this season include actor-writer Jack Bensinger (Rap World), stand-up comedian Jo Sunday (Just for Laughs), comic Maddie Wiener (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), actor and writer Rachel Pegram (Harley Quinn), writer-comedian Claire McFadden (Second City), Maxwell Gay (The Harvard Lampoon), and Tucker Flodman (The Harvard Lampoon). NBC's Saturday Night Live premiered on Oct. 11, 1975, and broadcasts live from NBC's famed Studio 8H in New York City's Rockefeller Center. The program is a production of Broadway Video in association with SNL Studios. Lorne Michaels is the executive producer.

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