“Got the boss coming!” a security worker shouted.

Lorne Michaels’s foot had hit curbside. It was around 1:30 a.m. outside Buddakan, the Asian-fusion restaurant in the meatpacking district and one of the semi-secret locales regularly used for the “Saturday Night Live” after-party.

“S.N.L.” is an institution of rituals, dating back to its first season in 1975-76: The show ends, the principals wave goodbye, and idling limos await outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza to whisk the cast and their guests to the after-party, the location of which is kept on a need-to-know basis.

On this night, after the Christmas show, Buddakan closed before midnight, or around the time the guest host Jimmy Fallon and the musical guest Justin Timberlake were reprising “The Barry Gibb Talk Show” sketch. By 1 a.m., two young men in suits took up their positions at Buddakan’s heavy door. As Mr. Michaels approached, one of them saw that his partner was in the appalling position of having his back turned to the show’s philosopher-king, and gave a prompt corrective shove.

Mr. Michaels’s entrance came amid the rapid-fire arrival of his cast. “I have six,” Taran Killam said as he entered. “They’re with cue cards, “ another guest said, legitimizing his escorts. One interloper tried the swept-in-with-the-crowd move, and was flagged by security, which nearly touched off fisticuffs behind Nasim Pedrad, still in pancake makeup.