With the new 44th season of Saturday Night Live premiering on September 29th, I thought I would reflect and make a list of my 10 favorite skits from SNL. With 43 seasons filled with so many hilarious moments to pick from, this is really hard to put together. So *disclosure*, this is no particular order or ranking. This is just a list of SNL moments that I personally love and would recommend to other people!
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STEFON!!!!!
Bill Hader’s iconic Weekend Update character never fails to make me crack up. For a period of time, Stefon was Weekend Update’s ‘City Correspondent’. He always had ridiculous suggestions for what “New York’s Hottest Club” at the moment was. Stefon and everything he says is just nonsense but in a very hilarious way. You can always see it in Bill Hader’s face how hard it is to deliver his lines without cracking up.
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Disney World Show (Season 39, Episode 11… Drake is the host)
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/disney-world-show/n45305
First of all, Drake KILLED IT when he hosted SNL the first time. This is one of my favorite episodes ever. This was in 2014 and I remember at the time, I knew his songs but didn’t know what Drake was like as a person. After watching him host SNL, I became a big fan of Drake! My favorite sketch from this episode is the one with Rahat. Rahat is just a typical Disney tourist attending the Indian Jones show. Then, she gets chosen from the audience to play Indian Jones. However, she does not speak English and it is very unclear if she understands what is going on. Drake plays a very enthusiastic Disney employee in very short khaki shorts. I have cried laughing at this skit many times. When Drake went back to host SNL for the second time, I crossed my fingers that they would do a follow-up sketch of this but unfortunately, they did not.
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Celebrities Visit Jay-Z and Beyoncé to See Their New Baby (Season 37 Episode 15… Maya Rudolph is the host)
If you are a fan of the SNL cast member’s over the top celebrity impressions, this is a must see. The plot of this sketch is a bunch of different celebrities from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to Taylor Swift all going to Beyonce and JayZ’s house to meet their new baby, Blue Ivy.
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Gilly
During her time on SNL, Kristen Wiig had a outrageous reoccurring character named Gilly. Gilly is a young girl in school who likes to pull pranks in her classes. However, she is not the best at hiding the fact that it was her. In fact, it is usually fairly obvious that it was her. Whoever plays the teacher will always have to say, “GILLLLYYYY” and she will make her signature blushing face and simply say, “Sorry.” This description does not do the comedy behind Gilly justice, it’s hard to explain why it’s funny but it just is.
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Disney Channel Acting School (Season 36 Episode 16… Miley Cyrus is the host)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSd7Q7oThc
As someone who grew up with Disney Channel, this skit is gold. In this quick, fake commercial, Miley Cyrus and Kenan Thompson who is impersonating Raven Symone (Need I say more?) are promoting classes to help young actors wishing to one day end up on a show on Disney Channel. They just brutally point out how the shows can sometimes be really overexaggerated and extra. Since I grew up watching all the shows they are making fun of, I am able to get the jokes perfectly. Any other late 90s or early 2000s kid who experienced this era of Disney Channel has to see it.
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Taylor Swift’s Monologue Song (La, La, La)….(Season 35 Episode 5… Obviously Taylor Swift is the host)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2twcSFYlt0
If it wasn’t obvious in the last article I wrote, I am a huge Taylor Swift fan and have been for years. Therefore, in my eyes, her hosting SNL was one the greatest things to ever happen. She killed it with her monologue. Over the years, many people have made fun of Taylor for her songwriting style, her love life or dating record, and many other things. I actually watched this once while dealing with heartbreak in my own life to cheer me up and it did make me laugh and feel better. In her monologue for Saturday Night Live, she decided to join in an attempt to prove these people right. My favorite part of is when she calls Joe Jonas out for breaking up with her over the phone and says “Hey Joe, I’m doing real well, tonight I’m hosting SNL.” I think one of the reasons SNL has been around for so long and has done so well is because it gives us the opportunity to watch our favorite celebrities be silly, get outside of their comfort zone and have a few laughs. This is the perfect example of that.
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Justin Timberlake’s ‘Bring it On Down To …ville” skits
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/veganville/n35373
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/wrappinville-cold-open/3634768
Throughout his career, Justin Timberlake has become a favorite to appear on SNL. He is a member of the “Five-Timers Club” meaning he has hosted the show five times. In addition, he has made many more appearances and cameos on the show. Since he has been on the show so often, he has a few reoccurring characters of his own. One of my personal favorites is when he dresses up in a over the top food/item costume and makes parodies of popular songs to promote whatever his character is selling. He has been everything from a cup of soup to a piece of tofu to a roll of wrapping paper. Accompanied with jazz hands, he finishes every parody with “Bring It On Down To (ex. Wrappin)ville.” Some people find these sketches incredibly goofy but I personally think they are hilarious.
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Real Housewives of Disney (Season 37 Episode 16… Lindsay Lohan is the host)
https://www.metatube.com/en/videos/126885/The-Real-Housewives-Of-Disney-Saturday-Night-Live-SNL-HD/
This is a hilarious short formatted like real housewives shows but it features the Disney princesses. If you enjoy all the ridiculous drama and fighting that comes with reality television as much as I do, I highly recommend you check this out.
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To wrap this up, I wanted to shout-out all of the Holiday sketches. There are so many good ones out there. In fact, usually on the Wednesday or Thursday night before holidays like Halloween and Christmas, NBC usually airs a primetime special “SNL Christmas” or “SNL Halloween”. I could write two separate articles about those. I look forward to those EVERY YEAR. Basically, it is the same thing as this where SNL just does a huge two hour special of all the funniest holiday-themed sketches. It never disappoints.
The New Season of Saturday Night Live airs September 29th at 11:30pm on NBC. Maybe after this season, I’ll have to revise this list…