Saturday Night Live doesn't always put the host in the Cold Open. In fact, it rarely happens. They typically leave the host for after the monologue, which makes sense when you think about it. However, that's not to say it hasn't happened before. It has. The host does show up, on occasion, in the cold open and is typically met with thunderous applause, and that is exactly what happened in the premiere episode for Season 48 with host Miles Teller.
Teller took to Saturday Night Live with musical guest Kendrick Lamar and gave viewers quite a shining performance throughout each sketch. In more recent years, the host has started to fall into the background of sketches, and sometimes, there's one they're barely in but for Teller, he was front and center of nearly every aspect of his night, and it was fun to watch. That includes jumping into the cold open with a Peyton Manning impression that had many online wondering if they also got Peyton Manning to cameo in the premiere.
Teller's spot-on impression of Manning gave the fans a preview of the quality to expect from the episode. The premise is simple: Peyton Manning and his brother, Eli Manning (Andrew Dismukes) are running commentary on the Saturday Night Live cold open and ranking the jokes and "plays" of the episode. Dismukes and Teller playing the Manning brothers led to one of the funnier cold opens in recent SNL memory.
While the cold open was not outright slap-your-knee funny, that was the point. It was intentionally awkward, poking fun at SNL's reliance on political news as a source of comedy. The sketch hit all the political beats missed throughout the summer and both the Manning brothers are not having the basic jokes. The sketch did not only analyze the jokes but also gauged the new featured players on the show as well as the old cast members who were stepping up after a major cast exodus on Saturday Night Live.
Bowen Yang, one of the old cast members who was to step up this season, seemingly crumbles under pressure in the sketch as he repeatedly tries to make a failing catchphrase work and even literally shrugs after saying a joke that does not get the intended laughs. The cold open also surprisingly included cameos from both Jon Hamm and Shaun White, with Hamm playing a surprise commentator and White as the "gratuitous stunt casting" who is brought in "when the host isn't that famous". Teller's Manning had the perfect comeback reminding the audience that is special when the host is featured in the cold open because of how rarely it happens.
The cold open set the tone for Teller's performances throughout the night and was undoubtedly a great jump to the season. Check out the sketch below: