Once upon a time Saturday Night Live was a celebration of acting talent, of impromptu creativity and most importantly, of humor, which is why it launched the careers of too many comedians to count. Alas, over the past few decades, SNL lost its way. Well... many got a stark reminder last night when millions turned on SNL for first time in years (or ever) only to be immediately reminded why they never watched it anymore.

And then there was Elon Musk.

The world's second richest man was the main reason why an entire generation of young Dogecoin "traders" turned on SNL for the first time in their lives.... only to see their favorite joke of a cryptocurrency (which it is by definition) demolished after weeks of breathless buildups for what Elon Musk had in store. Unfortunately, as with most things Musk, the action was all in the fervent anticipation of the main event... which turned out to be a fiasco.

Having surged to a record high of 73 cents (making it the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency) on Saturday ahead of the show, it started to drop as soon as Musk took the microphone....

Doge: 0.658

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 9, 2021

Then it dropped more as Musk's rambling monologue and boring skits failed to excite or properly promote his favorite cryptocurrency. It ultimately dumped as low as 42 cents at of 8:05 a.m. ET.

Doge 0.55

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 9, 2021

A 35% decline in 24 hours and a disappointment for all those who had expected that Musk's SNL appearance would be the catalyst that pushes the "dog" above parity with the dollar. Or, as Baird's Michael Antonelli put it, "bad jokes and no funny memes leading to a Doge crash absolutely makes sense to me. It’s like an earnings miss but for a new era."

Bad jokes and no funny memes leading to a Doge crash absolutely makes sense to me. It’s like an earnings miss but for a new era.

— Michael Antonelli (@BullandBaird) May 9, 2021

The furious selling that emerged after Musk's appearance also affected Robinhood, which said earlier that it was having some issues with crypto trading, citing high volume and volatility.

Update: We’re currently experiencing issues with crypto trading. We're working to resolve this as soon as possible. For the latest updates, check https://t.co/ZS733G6N1J

— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) May 9, 2021

So what about the overhyped Musk appearance? It was, in a word, forgettable, his opening monologue flat and boring, which perhaps can be chalked up to Musk's disclosure that he had Asperger's, although once again Musk had some trouble with reality - he said he was the first person with Asperger’s to host the show, which is false: Dan Aykroyd was.

Musk incorporated his first Dogecoin reference, a throwaway line from Musk's mother, who joined him onstage and asked if her Mother's Day gift would be Dogecoin; Musk replied that it would be. Clearly unhappy with the angle Musk had chosen, just minutes later the doge faithful proceeded to dump the currency, which fell 25% to 50 cents from 66 cents at the start of the show.

Leading into the episode, Alameda Research trader Sam Trabucco (who said in a previous Tweet that he was “studying the typical SNL episode structure to try and understand when a DOGE mention would be the most natural”) speculated that if a joke or mention didn’t come in Musk’s opening monologue, it would be “all over.” And despite getting a very brief mention during the monologue, traders still responded quite negatively.

What he did next did not help: when Musk was asked repeatedly during the “Weekend Update” segment to explain what Dogecoin is. After reciting multiple facts about the cryptocurrency in the character of a "financial expert", he was asked if Dogecoin was a “hustle.” He responded, “Yeah, it’s a hustle" after previously claiming that Dogecoin “the future of currency, it’s an unstoppable financial vehicle that’s going to take over the world.”

Lloyd Ostertag stopped by the desk to talk cryptocurrency. pic.twitter.com/cuILxOBJlj

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) May 9, 2021

Sadly, that skit was also unfunny and fell flat as did most of Musk's other attempts at humor.

Dogecoin dropped nearly a third during Elon Musk's SNL appearance, recovering slightly later; in a skit he conceded Dogecoin was merely a "hustle" (@pierce / Protocol)https://t.co/mkDf0Lonsahttps://t.co/Mn8ygXBGD7

— Techmeme (@Techmeme) May 9, 2021

Meanwhile, as Musk was sweating before the live audience as well as on YouTube (NBC chose for the first time ever to live-stream the episode on Youtube) Barry Silbert — the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, the parent company of crypto investment vehicle company Grayscale — announced a public short on DOGE via the FTX exchange. In a series of follow-up Tweets, he revealed that the position was $1 million in size, and that any proceeds or remaining funds after closing the short would be donated to charity.

Okay $DOGE peeps, it's been fun. Welcome to crypto!

But the time has come for you to convert your DOGE to BTC

[disclosure: we've gone short DOGE via https://t.co/s8Qde2Ub4Z]

— Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) May 8, 2021

As dogecoin was routed, so was the rest of the crypto space, with bitcoin sliding more than 2% to as low as $56,500 while most altcoins were also dragged lower.

Perhaps sensing that his vastly overhyped appearance would lead to turmoil for dogecoin, on Friday Musk tweeted a that cryptocurrencies are “promising, but please invest with caution" linking to a video that showed him talking about the merits of crypto, particularly Dogecoin. That followed months of Twitter posts from Musk about Dogecoin, all of which exuded praise and snared millions of his easily impressionable followers into buying the "joke."

Cryptocurrency is promising, but please invest with caution! https://t.co/A4kplcP8Vq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 7, 2021

That said, despite the overnight tumble, Dogecoin is still up more than 16,000% in the past year and while Musk has been among its biggest boosters, fans also include Mark Cuban, Snoop Dogg and Gene Simmons.