Martin Short, now a Five-Timer, hosts a celebrity-filled ‘SNL’ holiday episode

Over a long career, and especially during his recent resurgence on “Only Murders in the Building,” Martin Short has pressured to a perfect diamond the Martin Short Thing, which is: saying very mean and petty things in a way that is both hilarious and somehow endearing. Hanks, who will narrate NBC’s documentary series “The Americas” in February, kicked off the sketch with Rudd welcoming Short into the Five-Timers Club, who responded, “What a surprise that I’ve known about all week.” Fey, Baldwin, Stone, Melissa McCarthy, Johansson, Kristen Wiig, John Mulaney and even Jimmy Fallon all got to tell a joke or two each, the best perhaps being when each made a confession. When Short received his Five Timers’ jacket, sized women’s small, he did some physical comedy making it impossible to put the garment on properly before saying, “From the bottom of my heart: I love most of you so much.” Short started his monologue with some one-liners, suggesting that he’d be playing an elf in 10 sketches and joking that his Uber driver, Matt Gaetz, was waiting outside before discussing his long friendship with “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels. “We’re kind of like Trump and Elon Musk, without the sexual tension.” When cast member Sarah Sherman appeared onstage to ask for some holiday cheer to get her out of her funk, Short launched into a song that sent him on a journey through the studio, throwing a kid off Santa’s lap, taking shots at actor Armie Hammer and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before encountering Michaels and Fallon. All three comics do a fine job physically expressing phrases such as “bull crap” and “super Christian,” but the sketch goes to a whole other level when McCarthy shows up as Short’s wife, banging on the family’s car window and threatening to eat the dad’s face with her own face.