Saturday Night Live

• According to in-home live-plus-same-day viewership figures from Nielsen Media Research, this episode had a 3.2 rating, 13 share in 18-49 and 6.7 million viewers overall.

• Starting with this episode, Seth Meyers is the new Weekend Update anchor with Amy Poehler.
• Dane Cook was one of 4 hosts to host SNL after hosting an episode from the previous year.

• This is the first episode featuring new director, Don Roy King.

• Brian Williams made a cameo appearance at the start of Weekend Update.

• This episode has a different representation of the Saturday Night Live logo and how the host and musical guests appear in the opening credits than what's depicted in the next episode.

• Lenny Pickett, Earl Gardner, and Steve Turre accompanied the Killers as the horn section during their 2nd song, "Bones."

• This is the first season premiere since the Heather Graham/Marc Anthony episode in Season 25 that did not include any featured players or new cast members.

• NBC reaired this episode just 2 weeks later, at the time, the shortest span of time between an episode and its repeat (until the Jon Hamm/Coldplay episode in season 34, which aired on primetime Saturday night the week after it premiered).

• Jaime Pressly was two months pregnant while hosting this episode.

• Like the previous episode, this episode featured a different logo than either the previous week's or the next live show's. The logo was the same as that used from 1981-85. In repeats, all instances of it were omitted for the logo as seen starting on the October 14, 2006 episode. Oddly, the mid-commercial break bumper/teases for all episodes this season and season 33, in repeats only, feature this 81-85 style logo.

• In the only rebroadcast of this episode, which was on May 26, 2007, the Jon Bovi sketch was switched with the NasCarettes sketch, and the third edition of the New York Stories was not shown.

• John's Talledega Nights co-star Will Ferrell made a cameo appearance as James Lipton during Reilly's monologue.

• This episode was the first live episode to feature the logo that would be used for the rest of season 32 onward, though the repeat of the Dane Cook/The Killers episode the previous week was the first show ever to feature the new, third logo revision.
• My Chemical Romance performed "Welcome to the Black Parade" and "Cancer".
• The Village Voice extensively covered the backstage preparation for the week leading up to this episode.

• Hugh Laurie sang an original comedic song.

• Sacha Baron Cohen made a cameo appearance during the cold opening as Borat.

• Beck performed "Nausea" and "Clap Hands."

• This episode averaged a 3.3 rating, 13 share in 18-49 and 7.4 million viewers overall (SNL's highest since the first time Julia Louis-Dreyfus hosted in season 31). When this episode reran on January 6, it delivered a 3.4 rating, 14 share in adults 18-49 and 7.6 million viewers overall, which was more than the original airing.
• With this show, Alec Baldwin has hosted 13 times, surpassing John Goodman.
• On the December 1, 2007 repeat of this episode (which aired when SNL was on hiatus due to the Writers' Guild strike), The Awkward Carpool sketch was cut and replaced by the "Urigro" fake commercial and the "First Person in the History of the World To Dance" sketch from the episode hosted by Jeremy Piven.
• This episode was repeated 3 times on NBC.
• Cameos include Tina Fey & Tracy Morgan in the monologue, Takeru Kobayashi during TV Funhouse, Steve Martin, Martin Short, & Paul McCartney in the Platinum Lounge sketch, and Tony Bennett both during The Tony Bennett Show sketch and singing with Aguilera before the closing credits.
• Martin Short mentioned in an interview on Late Night With Conan O'Brien that only he, Steve Martin, and Lorne were aware that McCartney was in the building before he appeared on camera.
• The NBC rerun on June 9, 2007 cuts the ending of the Carpool sketch where Kristen Wiig's character turns on the radio and Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" plays on the radio (the sketch ends after Alec Baldwin's character says, "Bobby McFerrin raped my grandmother!"); this is also how the sketch ended on the SNL special "The Best of the 2006-2007 Season."
• Alec Baldwin's episode was credited for the May 5, 2007 version of "The Best of 2006-2007" special because of "Awkward Carpool," but the sketch was cut out of the August 25, 2007 rerun due to the Molly Shannon's Penelope sketch.

• Mary J. Blige performs with Ludacris during his second performance, "Runaway Love."

• Jason Sudeikis opens the show impersonating George W. Bush, taking over the role from Will Forte.

• This marks the first time Tenacious D appeared on the show as "musical guest". They previously appeared together during each one of Jack Black's hosting stints in addition to a special guest appearance back in 1998. They performed "Kickapoo" and "The Metal" from their album/feature film soundtrack "The Pick of Destiny"
• Jack Black appeared in a skit which took place at a recording studio but it was cut after dress rehearsal.
• Jason Reed cameos during the performance of "The Metal."

Akon

• Alec Baldwin makes a cameo during the monologue. Also, the Valtrex commercial from Baldwin's November episode is repeated in this episode.
• The "Pep Talk" Digital Short from this episode was cut from last week's episode, this was clear from the appearance of Matthew Fox.
• The final sketch (the Cat Lawyer fake commercial) was pre-emptively ended when the sketch fades to the final bumper of the night, cuts audio soon after, as the final local affiliate break cuts in.
• This episode never re-aired on NBC.

• Timberlake becomes the third in SNL history to simultaneously be a host and musical guest more than once, next to Garth Brooks and Britney Spears.
• Jimmy Fallon appeared in the Barry Gibb Talk Show sketch, and also introduced "What Goes Around..." Cameron Diaz, Timberlake's girlfriend at the time, introduced "My Love."
• After the episode, NBC put an uncensored version of the Digital Short "Dick in a Box" on their website and YouTube. The uncensored version is prefaced with a warning stating that the Digital Short has explicit language that was bleeped out on the TV version. It quickly became an Internet phenomenon; much like "Lazy Sunday" did a year earlier and won an Emmy in 2007.

• Rapper Common makes a cameo appearance.
• During the live broadcast, AFI's second performance, "Miss Murder," was marred by audio problems, with lead singer Davey Havok's vocals inaudible for about a minute and other audio distorted.
• This episode dominated its time period with a 3.0 rating, 11 share in 18-49 and 6.7 million viewers overall.
• Aside from the monologue the host only made 4 live appearances in the show.

• With this episode, Barrymore becomes the second female celebrity to host five times after Candice Bergen. No other female celebrity has hosted more than five times.
• Darrell Hammond does not appear live during the episode.
• Horatio Sanz makes a guest appearance as Elton John during the "Donatella Versace Super Bowl Special."
• This is the only episode this season to feature Seth Meyers outside of Weekend Update.

• Arcade Fire appear in the SNL Digital Short, Business Meeting.
• Rashida Jones cameos as Karen Filippelli in the monologue's parody of The Office.
• In the March 31 and July 14 reruns of the episode, Bill Hader's character mentioning that his father had Down Syndrome was bleeped out during the "Danny's Song Memories" sketch after NBC received complaints over the usage of the phrase.

• Chris Rock appears in the cold open, giving his insight on the 2008 presidential election; he suggested that there would be no reason that America would not be ready for a black president because "...we just had a retarded one."
• With this episode, Julia Louis-Dreyfus becomes the first female SNL castmember to host more than once.
• Darrell Hammond does not appear in this episode (his Weekend Update commentary as John McCain was cut after dress-rehearsal)

• Eli Manning, Archie Manning, Cooper Manning and Olivia Manning make cameos; Dan Aykroyd has a cameo during Weekend Update as a crying fan of Sanjaya Malakar.
• Manning hosted the show on his thirty-first birthday. During the goodnights, a cake was wheeled out by his brothers Eli and Cooper and a rendition of Happy Birthday was performed by the Saturday Night Live band.
• Darrell Hammond is again absent from the live showing of this episode (his Weekend Update commentary as Rudy Giuliani was cut after dress-rehearsal)
• The dress rehearsal version of the monologue originally had Amy Poehler as a New England Patriots fan who heckles Manning. Both the dress rehearsal and the live show monologue had the joke about Tom Brady and the circus having two more rings than Manning.
• This episode dominated its timeslot with a 3.5 rating, 15 share in 18-49 and 7.9 million viewers overall.
• Carrie Underwood is the second American Idol-winner to appear on SNL.
• In an interview, Simpsons show runner Al Jean has cited this episode as the reason why he picked Peyton Manning to cameo (along with Manning's brothers, Eli and Cooper, who also cameoed on this episode) on the season 21 episode "O Brother, Where Bart Thou?".

• Alec Baldwin cameos in the filmed commercial parody entitled Hathaway Mustache Ride Company. It was written by James Downey and was filmed during an off week in April. The commercial features the entire cast minus Amy Poehler who was promoting the movie Blades of Glory at the time.
• Lavigne appears as Elle Fanning in Dakota Fanning Show sketch.
• The Digital Short The Shooting is removed from the iTunes version of the episode due to the Virginia Tech shootings that happened two days after this sketch aired, and was quickly removed from NBC.com and YouTube due to NBC's inability to clear the song "Hide and Seek" used in the short. Despite NBC's inability to clear the rights, the Digital Short aired in its entirety when the episode was rerun on August 4.

• Sen. Charles Schumer makes a pre-taped cameo in the cold opening.

• With this episode, Molly Shannon is the second female former cast member to come back and host (Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the first), and the first female castmember who worked under Lorne Michaels to host (Louis-Dreyfus was a castmember under Dick Ebersol from 1982 to 1985).

• According to their publicists, Johnny Depp and Matt Damon declined offers to host the season finale.
• Zach's Scrubs co-stars Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke were in attendance for this episode.