snl top 15

Friday, January 19th, 2024 10:46 pm
hyojungss: zhou jieqiong (Default)
[personal profile] hyojungss

caveat: i've only been watching snl since season 42 (2016-17) and i stopped watching full episodes sometime during season 47 (2021-22). so the ranking is a bit meaningless but i stand behind the quality of what i linked here!!!

BEST LIVE SKETCH:

[1]


QVC Auditions
Season 42 / November 19, 2016 / 5:09 / 7.6M views
Cast: Cecily Strong, Kristen Wiig (host), Bobby Moynihan, Beck Bennett
Credited Writers: ?

this is my all time favorite snl video... i think i saw it for the first time in a rabbit room when bear introduced me to snl but i became unreasonably obsessed with it recently. i practically have it memorized. as you will see, i love cecily strong and rate her highly as a performer, but i think this one is particularly incredible because when i look at joyce childers i often forget it's cecily as a person. cecily and kristen do an amazing job with the theatrics, the accents, and with NOT BREAKING... sometimes breaking makes a sketch funnier but this package is tew good. something that's only possible if returning cast hosts or a really brilliant actor

the genius of this sketch is that it's 5 minutes long but it packs so much into it that it feels longer. it feels like a mockery of southern suburban white women but there are so many layers. joyce: bad at speaking but tries to hide it for the camera, slips into accent when yelling at her bumbling husband. christie: petty passive aggressive with a great salesperson voice and hates joyce but you don't know why at first!! then the parallel with her also yelling at her bumbling husband. THEN: joyce freaking out because the only meaning in her life is auditioning for qvc. joyce coming over to take her insecurities out on christie. what are you doing. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING. the progression. the devolving of their grammar, accents and composure. joyce bringing out the gun. "surprise surprise i guess she's going to kill another person ON ACCIDENT." beck's delivery of "joyce don't be a fool". bobby's delivery of "it's for the play i'm directing." kristen's delivery of "joyce. you are SUCH A JOKE." beck and bobby's faces and opposite movements off the stage when cecily reveals that they're gay (crying emoji) i lose it every single time. even the ending is perfect, which snl is pretty hit or miss with.

anyway i feel the same way about qvc auditions as i do about my favorite writing: i could talk about every aspect of it forever!

[2]


I Am Your Mother
Season 34 / April 11, 2009 / 5:46 / 22.7M views
Cast: Fred Armisen, Zac Efron (host), Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis
Credited Writers: ?

fred armisen is the star of this one... those dramatics! but again the fact that zac didn't break!??!??!?! while getting verbally and physically abused by fred 😭 and andy too... now that i think about it i think #3 is a better sketch than this one but the acting in this carries it much more than the writing does. also i think the ending/consistency of this is quite weak, writing-wise. but the contrast between sweet demure fred and momzilla is great, and you have some good straight man deliveries from andy and zac: "yeah, you should fire her." and jason is there.

[3]


Italian Restaurant
Season 43 / September 30, 2017 / 4:25 / 11.9M views
Cast: Ryan Gosling (host), Cecily Strong, Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Melissa Villaseñor, Chris Redd, Heidi Gardner, Beck Bennett
Credited Writers: Sudi Green, Fran Gillespie, Cecily Strong
Related: Coffee Shop

this is crazy.... ryan gosling also features in a lot of my favorites so unsurprisingly the combo of him and cecily leading a sketch is absolutely monstrous. his weakness is that he breaks... but his comedic acting is so good. cecily plays (every type of character!) entitled elitist overdramatic white girls so well and her delivery is always perfect. "you should literally be disbarred" is like a line from girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with at a party... more on that later. mikey day is great versatile straight man, chris redd your snark

fav lines: "i oughtta beat you to death." / "my dad was a really messed up guy. he was really messed up but he would never do this to me! not at a terrezono's!"

the coffee shop sequel with adam driver/cecily strong is also good, i just chose this one because it's the original and i like it better... but adam driver is just as good on snl as ryan.

[4]


High School Theatre Show with Emma Stone
Season 42 / December 3, 2016 / 4:54 / 9.5M views
Cast: Emma Stone (host), Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett, Kate McKinnon, Mikey Day, Vanessa Bayer, Kenan Thompson
Credited Writers: ?
Related: High School Theater Show with Cameron Diaz, High School Theater Show with Reese Witherspoon, High School Theater Show with Elizabeth Banks

so goofy... you forget how cringey high schoolers are!! they're kids!!

[5]


Barbie Instagram
Season 43 / May 5, 2018 / 4:55 / 19.0M views
Cast: Donald Glover (host), Heidi Gardner, Pete Davidson, Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner
Credited Writers: James Anderson, Julio Torres
Related: Ken Instagram, Sara Lee

heidi gardner vapid empty brain, donald glover planting the seed for barbie (2023) dir. greta gerwig, pete davidson pete davidson. i seriously wonder how much influence this and the ken sketch had on the movie or if they were concurrent developments!! esp at the time i really was obsessed with this because of the level of meta and depth injected into a marketing exercise :') the best lines are almost in succession: "i think addressing the trauma is important. it's a discussion that needs to be had." / "it's almost, not night anymore."

also, sara lee isn't exactly part of the series but it's related in the sense that it's about insane instagram captions (and was written by, you guessed it, Julio Torres and Bowen Yang).... must get rid of toxic in community

[6]


Meet Your Second Wife
Season 41 / December 19, 2015 / 5:06 / 36.9M views
Cast: Amy Poehler (host), Tina Fey (host), Bobby Moynihan, Taran Killam, Kenan Thompson, Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant, Leslie Jones
Credited Writers: ?

i love this as a genius meta commentary on Men... it's soooo funny and yet horrifying.

[7]


Dry Fridays
Season 42 / February 4, 2017 / 5:07 / 13.1M views
Cast: Kristen Stewart (host), Mikey Day, Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney
Credited Writers: Streeter Seidell, Mikey Day

i put this on the list specifically for "you can go ahead and pop that beanie back on" but just in general... this sketch was made for kstew

[8]


Sticky Bun
Season 42 / March 4, 2017 / 4:24 / 9.4M views
Cast: Octavia Spencer (host), Mikey Day, Melissa Villaseñor, Beck Bennett, Cecily Strong, Vanessa Bayer
Credited Writers: ?

omg i used to be obsessed with this one too, it's very real life food service experience but also i think the ending was done really well

[honorable mentions]


i'm not really proud of putting rap roundtable on here but i can't deny that every time timothee and pete start the rap/"sing" i die laughing... mattress store is a good representation of rami malek's funny episode, lisa from temecula (ego nwodim dining table shaker) and girlfriends game night (cecily/bill hader wheelchair sketch) are full on absurdist breaking sketches and i love them for it.

BEST PRETAPE:

[1]


Papyrus
Season 43 / September 30, 2017 / 3:05 / 21.6M views
Cast: Ryan Gosling (host), Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, Kyle Mooney, Heidi Gardner
Credited Writers: Julio Torres

just absolute genius from julio torres.... every little aspect and the production value is great, but again one that couldn't be done without ryan gosling being ryan gosling. just so overdramatic.

[2]


The Actress
Season 44 / April 13, 2019 / 4:06 / 11.8M views
Cast: Emma Stone (host), Beck Bennett
Credited Writers: Julio Torres, Bowen Yang

honestly this deserves just as much acclaim as papyrus!! emma stone is also a genius, she changes her voice so well as a bad actress. and beck bennett's apathetic and blunt delivery is tew good. and the writing in general is perfect and ties the whole thing together with an emotional narrative and timed callbacks... "i know how much you like batteries". this makes me even more disappointed emma's latest episode was trash

[3]


Totino's with Kristen Stewart
Season 42 / February 4, 2017 / 3:23 / 14.3M views
Cast: Vanessa Bayer, Kristen Stewart (host), Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day
Credited Writers: Chris Kelly, Sarah Schneider
Related: Totino's Activity Pack Super Bowl Commercial, Totino's

this is an even better lesbian movie parody than the lesbian period drama sketch (which is too real to be actually funny). this kills me... the touching hands touching the totinos. "what about my hungry guys?" / "what are you hungry for?" i love it even more because it's the finale in the totinos trilogy in which vanessa gets ignored and demeaned by the football fans/men and the writers said they wanted vanessa's (nameless) character to have a happy ending :') i'm glad they found the perfect person to write her with ♡

[honorable mentions]


both adam driver star wars undercover boss clips are good but this one has "kylo ren is a punk bitch" and that really sells it for me. grouch is super high budget genius, the house is a great parody of reality shows, and santa baby is... you guessed it... Ryan Gosling and Vanessa Bayer

BEST DIGITAL SHORT:

[1]


The Shooting AKA Dear Sister
Season 32 / April 14, 2007 / 3:42 / 40.1M views
Cast: Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Shia LaBeouf (host), Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen
Credited Writers: The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone)

i mean so this is kind of cheating because the digital shorts were basically low budget pretapes but to be fair please don't destroy could have gone in this category and yet there are none here. i could have honorable mentioned the seltzer and rami sketches but i didn't even want to because i have no affection for the pdd trio. this is funny on its own and has been for the many years i knew about it, but after watching the oc up to the episode this is parodying, i appreciate it even more.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:

[1]


Loco ft. Bad Bunny
Season 46 / February 20, 2021 / 2:17 / 3.4M views
Cast: Ego Nwodim, Regé-Jean Page (host), Pete Davidson, Bad Bunny (musical guest)
Credited Writers: Pete Davidson, Ego Nwodim, Gary Richardson, Will Stephen

snl has a lot of decent original songs but this one is genuinely so good to me that i would have saved it on spotify.... I LOVE EGO. bad bitch alert, i look fuego! i love the editing in the video also. even though it's a SHORT SONG. okay i also need to mention back home ballers because this is me every time i go home... sza big boys is extremely catchy but the verses aren't very good.

BEST WEEKEND UPDATE CHARACTER:

[1]


The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started A Conversation With At A Party [on the 2016 Election]
Season 42 / October 22, 2016 / 3:14 / 2.2M views
Cast: Cecily Strong, Michael Che
Credited Writers: ?


i didn't truly appreciate this character until cecily left but the wordplay is so clever and the delivery of the malapropisms must take so much skill and practice. i had a hard time deciding which appearance of the character to link (because remembering the differences between them is quite difficult). i think this one is the best but my favorite line from the christmas one (december 2012) is "why can't secret santa just be openly gay? like, hello, it's 2010." omgggg and "it's origami. that's spanish for goose."

[2]


Women's History Song
Season 35 / March 6, 2010 / 3:33 / 92k views
Cast: Will Forte, Seth Meyers
Credited Writers: ?

this is recency bias but i just discovered this on youtube last month and i'm obsessed with it. i don't really Know will forte or his comedy style like that but i think i would appreciate it even more if i did.

[honorable mentions]


hap! i was trying to pick one guy who just bought a boat sketch to link but i couldn't stomach it... he's sooooo annoying but i just think that's a testament to alex moffat's writing and delivery so i wanted to point it out. also all of bowen yang's wu work is quite good but i was too lazy to find a specific one to link

[+]

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Date: Sat, Jan. 20th, 2024 08:21 am (UTC)
girlrock: (Default)
From: [personal profile] girlrock
i completely forgot about high school theater show 😭😭😭 this is such a great list with some true classics and your formatting is perfect too!!! i love how you structured the details for each sketch.

it's true that adam and ryan are equally flexible in terms of the characters they can play and how well they commit to all their sketches... i'd put them on the same level as emma honestly i always think it's so hilarious that the actress was on the bts episode and NONE of the armys watching live solely for bts's performance were capable of appreciating her genius!!!!!!

also yeah i genuinely believe barbie instagram was an active influence on the writing and development of the barbie movie LOL. thank u for the sara lee shoutout btw #torresgirliesrise

re: pretapes i think you basically encapsulated all my favs so no notes it's perfect... honestly i'm so amused by how much you hate pdd's nepobaby asses LHDSFLKHLH i've definitely enjoyed some of their work but looking back now i can't really identity anything distinguishable without having to go rewatch them, but i guess that's not necessarily a bad thing... but either way i respekt you

cecily....... 💔 lol i love how you're not a fan of stefon.

too tired to double check that my comment makes any sense at all but thank you for writing this post i just loaded up a ton of tabs to do some rewatching!!! lol love u risa :')

Date: Sat, Jan. 20th, 2024 08:48 am (UTC)
girlrock: (Default)
From: [personal profile] girlrock
also what's funny to me about dear sister is that it's so notorious that it's become essentially removed from the context of the scene it's parodying since most of our generation have never even seen the oc, and similarly many people completely forget hide and seek is imogen's song and not just a random sample on watcha say... layers

Date: Sat, Jan. 20th, 2024 05:40 pm (UTC)
hyojungss: zhou jieqiong (Default)
From: [personal profile] hyojungss
happy you enjoyed it!! snl's writing rollercoasters too much and it made me sad that looking up credits, a lot of the people on my fav sketches from long ago have already moved on from the show... but part of that is the your favorite snl cast is the one on the show while you were in high school* phenomenon (college for me)

having the motivation to watch snl these days is a struggle with some of the host choices and life in general but i do hope they can become funny again!!!! i'm sure there are some amazing actor hosts that aren't ryan/adam/emma but my goldfish brain...

pdd i feel like if you've seen the first two shorts they did you've seen them all. i can laugh at their stuff but like... it doesn't really speak to reality. ASIDE FROM THE NEPOTISM i don't think their jokes say anything about life or society that elevates them.

i don't have anything against stefon! i have a really bad memory when it comes to wu so i'm sure i missed a lot of good ones...
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