Long before superhero movies dominated theaters, Saturday Night Live had already discovered something important:
Superheroes become even funnier when you make them deal with ordinary life.
Forget saving the planet.
Forget supervillains.
Forget enormous battles.
What happens when Superman throws a party and invites his superhero friends over for drinks?
That wonderfully ridiculous idea became “Superhero Party,” a classic Saturday Night Live sketch broadcast on March 17, 1979. The episode was hosted by Margot Kidder, who had recently become famous for playing Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in 1978’s Superman. SNL Transcripts Tonight
Instead of simply having Kidder appear as an unrelated comedy character, SNL took advantage of the obvious opportunity.
She became Lois Lane again.
But this time, her Superman wasn’t Christopher Reeve.
It was Bill Murray.
And Superman wasn’t busy saving Metropolis.
He and Lois were throwing a party.
That’s where the comedy begins.
The premise treats the world’s most powerful superheroes like completely ordinary adults attending a social gathering.
Superman worries about food.
Lois prepares the punch.
Guests bring presents.
Couples arrive together.
There are relationship problems, awkward conversations and people who clearly aren’t as impressive at a party as they think they are.
Then the doorbell rings.
The first superhero guest arrives.
It’s The Flash, played by Dan Aykroyd.
And he has brought his date Beverly, played by Gilda Radner. SNL Transcripts Tonight
Immediately, the sketch establishes its style of humor.
The Flash isn’t introduced with a dramatic action sequence.
He doesn’t race into the apartment to save someone.
He’s simply another guest arriving early to a party.
But because he’s The Flash, even ordinary conversation becomes absurd.
Superman welcomes him as the fastest man alive.
The Flash and Beverly greet Lois.
Beverly notices Lois’s diamond ring, leading to another superhero joke: Superman supposedly created the diamond himself from charcoal. SNL Transcripts Tonight
It’s exactly the kind of joke the sketch does so well.
Take an everyday situation and ask:
How would superheroes handle this?
Even opening a present becomes different when Superman has X-ray vision.
The Flash brings Superman and Lois a corkscrew.
Before Lois can properly open the gift, Superman already knows what’s inside.
Lois isn’t impressed.
She reminds her husband that some people don’t have X-ray vision and actually enjoy being surprised. SNL Transcripts Tonight
Suddenly Superman’s incredible powers aren’t heroic.
They’re annoying.
And that’s the central idea behind much of “Superhero Party.”
These characters may be extraordinary when fighting criminals, but socially they’re just as awkward as everyone else.
Dan Aykroyd’s Flash takes that idea even further.
When Lois offers him some punch, he claims he has already finished a drink during the tiny amount of time it took her to ask the question.
She offers again.
He has supposedly already finished another one.
Beverly finally tells him to slow down. SNL Transcripts Tonight
It’s a simple joke, but it’s perfect for The Flash.
Instead of using his super-speed to stop a disaster, he’s using it to drink at a party.
And the sketch keeps escalating from there.
More guests arrive.
Jane Curtin appears as Lana Lang.
Then comes one of the sketch’s most memorable entrances.
John Belushi arrives as The Hulk.
But he isn’t alone.
He’s accompanied by his wife, Cookie Hulk, played by Laraine Newman.
Cookie is visibly injured.
The implication is that being married to the Hulk has some unfortunate consequences when he loses control of his strength.
The joke is exaggerated and ridiculous, exactly in keeping with the sketch’s comic-book parody style.
Then Hulk produces a gift for Lois.
He opens a container and announces that it contains Kryptonite.
Everyone panics.
Then Hulk reveals he’s joking.
It’s actually almond bark. SNL Transcripts Tonight
Belushi’s Hulk is particularly memorable because it combines his naturally explosive comic energy with a character who is literally famous for explosive anger.
But perhaps the most interesting casting choice arrives later.
Garrett Morris appears as Ant-Man.
This was decades before Marvel’s Ant-Man movies made the character widely recognizable to mainstream movie audiences.
The Flash doesn’t even remember him.
Ant-Man has to explain who he is.
When asked about his abilities, he explains that he can shrink to the size of an ant while retaining the strength of a full-sized human.
Flash isn’t impressed.
Neither is Hulk.
The two superheroes begin mocking Ant-Man’s powers, sarcastically acting terrified by the idea of someone who can become tiny while possessing normal human strength. SNL Transcripts Tonight
The exchange turns superheroes into the same kind of people you might meet at an uncomfortable party.
There are popular guests.
There are strange guests.
There are people showing off.
And there’s somebody nobody remembers.
Vanity Fair later highlighted the sketch in its selection of memorable SNL sketches, specifically noting how it imagined superheroes behaving badly in ordinary social situations decades before modern superhero satire became common. Vanity Fair
But the sketch isn’t merely a collection of superhero jokes.
There is also a larger story involving Superman’s secret identity.
At some point Superman leaves the gathering.
Then Clark Kent appears.
Of course, both characters are Bill Murray.
Clark begins talking with Lois about Superman.
And because Lois doesn’t realize she’s talking to her husband in disguise, she reveals information Superman probably would have preferred not to hear.
The situation eventually leads Clark to become so upset that he makes a crucial mistake.
He returns without properly maintaining his Superman disguise.
Suddenly everyone realizes the truth.
Clark Kent is Superman.
The guests are stunned.
Superman’s secret is gone.
And the party collapses into chaos. SNL Transcripts Tonight
It’s an appropriately ridiculous ending to an already ridiculous gathering.
Yet what makes “Superhero Party” especially fascinating today is its cast.
Look at the names involved.
Bill Murray.
Dan Aykroyd.
John Belushi.
Gilda Radner.
Jane Curtin.
Garrett Morris.
Laraine Newman.
And guest host Margot Kidder.
That’s an extraordinary collection of late-1970s comedy talent gathered inside one superhero parody. The official SNL upload identifies the sketch as a Season 4 piece from 1979 and describes the party as being hosted by Clark Kent, played by Murray, and Lois Lane. YouTube
For John Belushi fans in particular, the sketch is a reminder of how versatile he could be.
Belushi didn’t need to play a realistic character.
Put him in Hulk makeup and let him explode into the room, and his physical presence immediately becomes part of the joke.
The same is true of Aykroyd.
His Flash isn’t presented as a serious superhero.
Aykroyd plays him like an ordinary guy who happens to possess an absurd superpower and enjoys reminding everyone about it.
That contrast is what makes the opening portion in your clip work so well.
The Flash walks into a party with Beverly.
On the surface, it’s completely normal.
But everything about him is slightly ridiculous because his super-speed changes even the most mundane interaction.
That’s also why this material translates surprisingly well to Facebook Reels today.
A viewer doesn’t need to know the entire episode.
They don’t need to understand 1970s television history.
They don’t even need to recognize every cast member.
The visual tells the story immediately.
There’s The Flash.
He’s at a house party.
He’s surrounded by superheroes.
And everyone is behaving as though this is completely normal.
That’s enough to make someone stop scrolling.
For longtime SNL fans, there’s an additional attraction.
They’re watching performers who would become comedy legends while they were still part of one of the show’s earliest eras.
Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd would become major movie stars.
John Belushi would become an enduring comedy icon.
Gilda Radner would remain one of the most beloved performers in SNL history.
And decades later, Garrett Morris would even make a cameo in Marvel’s 2015 Ant-Man, a nod often connected to his much earlier portrayal of the character on SNL. IMDb
So “Superhero Party” now exists in an unusual place in pop-culture history.
It’s a superhero parody from a time before superhero movies became an enormous Hollywood industry.
It’s an SNL sketch featuring several performers who were still building their legacies.
And it’s a piece of comedy that understood something audiences still find funny today:
Superpowers don’t automatically make people cool.
Sometimes Superman is an awkward husband.
Sometimes Hulk is an embarrassing party guest.
Sometimes Ant-Man gets bullied by the other superheroes.
And sometimes the fastest man alive is just the guy who showed up early with his girlfriend and drank his punch way too quickly.
More than four decades later, that basic idea still works.
Maybe that’s why seeing Dan Aykroyd walk through the door dressed as The Flash remains so entertaining.
For a few minutes, Saturday Night Live wasn’t interested in asking how superheroes would save the world.
It asked a much funnier question:
What would these people actually be like at a party?
The answer?
Absolute chaos.
