Sorting through 50 seasons and 980 episodes to choose the best of the best Saturday Night Live sketches proved an almost impossible task. How do you compare “Mister Robinson’s Neighbourhood” to “More cowbell”? Or “Two Wild and Crazy Guys” with Mary Catherine Gallagher? Wayne’s World and Debbie Downer? Celebrity Jeopardy and Weekend Update?
Comedy’s subjective, of course, so feel free to disagree, but after many hours of YouTube bingeing – and an entirely non-scientific around-the-office survey of recurring faves – this SNL fan has compiled her top picks from every decade since the show’s 1975 premiere.
The ‘70s: Weekend Update
While not a single sketch, per se, we can’t resist beginning at the beginning with Weekend Update, which premiered on Saturday Night Live’s very first episode and has been a mainstay (almost) ever since. With a familiar format that’s going strong 50 years later – and remains, arguably, the show’s trademark sketch – Weekend Update began with Chevy Chase as the anchor of a weekly satirical news report. Chase had been hired by Lorne Michaels as a writer, but when the sketch needed a straight face and deadpan delivery, he was promoted to the Weekend Update desk. His smug sign-off – “I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not”– lasted just a season, when Jane Curtin took the helm. But it was the addition of Canadian comedian Dan Aykroyd’s misogynistic station manager alongside Curtin’s second-wave power-feminist that earned Weekend Update its forever spot in the zeitgeist with sexist put downs like “Jane, you ignorant slut!” Their irresistible dynamic later inspired Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate in Anchorman for a whole new generation of quotable quips. When a parody gets its own parody, you know you’ve struck comedy gold.
Honourable Mentions: My second-favourite game show spoof, Coneheads Family Feud; Comediennes Gilda Radner and Madeline Khan in Barbara Wawa’s Not For Ladies Only
The ‘80s: Wayne’s World
It’s no big secret that one of America’s longest-running shows is, in fact, very Canadian. Comedic Canucks include Ottawa-born Dan Aykroyd, Hamilton native Martin Short, Phil Hartman from Brantford, Norm Macdonald from Quebec City and, of course, Scarborough’s own Mike Myers – writer and star of the classic 80s recurring sketch Wayne’s World. Myers plays Wayne Campbell, a teenaged metalhead who hosts a cable-access show in his basement with his best friend, Garth (Dana Carvey). Frequent guests included Ed O’Neil as their high-school teacher and Phil Hartman as Garth’s dad, but the pinnacle of Wayne’s World was when Aerosmith stopped by (in Wayne’s fantasy, but no matter). Party time! Excellent! The appearance was such a hit that Wayne’s World was promptly picked up for a pair of equally excellent films.
Honourable Mentions: Eddie Murphy’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood parody Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood; Glenn Close and friends in a Fatal Attraction Support Group
The ‘90s: Celebrity Jeopardy!
Again, we’re cheating with this choice, which is actually fifteen choices since the popular sketch ran that many times between 1996 all the way up to 2015. SNL, of course satirized many, many game shows, but none more so than Celebrity Jeopardy! Will Ferrell plays an eternally frustrated Alex Trebek, attempting to coax the unmissable answers (questions?) In the easiest of categories (like “Movies that start with the word Jaws” and “Famous Oprahs”) from impossibly dumb celebrity guests. Darrell Hammond’s a mainstay as Sean Connery, who antagonizes the host by mis-pronouncing categories (“Therapists” is “The Rapists,” for example, and “The Pen Is Mightier” is “The Penis Mightier”), while Norm Macdonald’s Burt Reynolds is a tobacco-chewing, Smokey and the Bandit-era aging cowboy who prefers to be called “Turd Ferguson.” Other contestants over the years are Kristin Wiig as a wine-drunk Kathy Lee Gifford, Amy Poehler as a puppy-carrying Sharon Osbourne, and Drew Barrymore as Ally McBeal-era Calista Flockhart, who’s too slight to lift her pen.
Honourable Mentions: Chris Farley’s motivational speaker who lives in a Van by down the river; NPR’s Delicious Dish with Pete Schweddy’s famous balls (“My mouth’s watering just thinking about those balls!); if you like beer, and you’re gay, Schmitts Gay is for you
The Aughts: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
Fey, SNL’s first female head writer, had recently departed her post at 30 Rockefeller to make its satiric counterpart 30 Rock when fate – and public pressure – called her back. When Sarah Palin was announced as the Republican VP pick for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Fey looked so much like the Alaskan governor that fans practically insisted she return to tackle the role. That year, on SNL’s 34th season premiere, Fey and BFF Amy Poehler played Palin and Hillary Clinton, respectively, delivering a nonpartisan message about sexism during the election. They’re sick of being called derogatory terms like pretty, beautiful, MILF (and harpy, shrew and boner-shrinker). The comedic pair next played Palin and Katie Couric in a sketch that used Palin’s own words almost verbatim – “and, so, healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending” – to spin comedy gold. The critics agreed wholeheartedly, while Fey was nominated for an Emmy for her near-perfect portrayal. Did she win the award? You betcha!
Honourable Mentions: The legit catchy Dick in a Box; Debbie Downer ruining Disney World (she can’t have children, it’s official)
The 2010s: Close Encounter
The premise: Three small-town buds meet with NSA agents in Washington to discuss the first verified case of alien abduction. The first two have had a transcendent, spectacular experience with calming light and pure love and seeing God. Not so much, however, for Kate McKinnon’s disgruntled, cigarette-smoking abductee character. “I woke up in a dirty metal dome and 40 little grey aliens watched me pee in a steel bowl,” she recalls. For every enlightening secret of the universe revealed to abductees one and two, McKinnon’s got a contrasting “super off-the-book” alien experience. Half the fun is watching McKinnon break her cast mates one by one: Aidy Bryant is the first to crack, Bobby Moynihan goes next and Ryan Gosling is reduced to tears by the sketch’s conclusion when the abductees are returned to Earth. The first two are carried gently and laid like a baby in a meadow; McKinnon was expelled naked from a big airplane toilet onto the roof of a Long John Silver’s.
Honourable Mentions: Adam Driver’s Oscar-worthy portrayal of an oil man at his kid’s Career Day; Vanessa Beyer and Cecily Strong as low-budget former Porn Stars; more Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in Meet Your Second Wife
The 2020s: Washington’s Dream
Granted, we’re only halfway through the decade, but Nate Bargatze as General George Washington is already a classic. To four soldiers about to fight for revolution, Bargatze’s Washington reminds them they’re fighting for the freedom to choose … their own system of weights and measures. “I dream that one day our proud nation will measure weights in pounds and that two thousand pounds shall be called a ton.” The confused soldiers take turns asking questions like what with one thousand tons be called? “Nothing.” Without breaking character for even a moment, Bargatze even manages to explain football. “It’s a sport where you throw a ball with your hands.” No kicking, sir? “There’s a little kicking.” The skit perfectly demonstrates when SNL writers are at their best with silly-on-the-surface comedy with biting political commentary just beneath; the sketch poked fun at the country’s arbitrary, nonsensical systems and the idea of American exceptionalism at the same time Donald Trump was ramping up his plans to run for president for a third time with yet another promise to make America great again.
Honourable Mentions: Bowen Yang as the iceberg that sank the Titanic; the best generation sings Boomers got the Vax
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