- 7 weeks ago
Grab your sunglasses, because these sketches throw enough shade to cause an eclipse! Join us as we count down the most brutal, unforgiving, and deliciously ruthless moments in Saturday Night Live history. From Norm MacDonald's relentless O.J. Simpson jokes to Melissa McCarthy's podium-wielding Sean Spicer, these are the times SNL didn't just cross the line – they obliterated it.
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00:00According to retailers, the most popular Halloween mask this year is O.J. Simpson.
00:05And the most popular Halloween greeting is,
00:08I'll kill you and that guy who's bringing over your glasses, or a treat.
00:12Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:14And today, we're counting down our picks for the sketches and weekend update segments
00:19where the shade wasn't subtle. It was the point.
00:22Okay, now let me wave something shiny in front of you monkeys.
00:28I'll get back to you.
00:30Number 20. The White POTUS.
00:35I mean, it's like I have all these crazy ideas, you know.
00:38Like, I have this syringe full of active measles virus, and I just want to stab somebody with it,
00:46you know. And I'm having these insane ideas, like what if we took all the fluoride out of
00:51the drinking water? But what would that do to people's teeth?
00:54Fluoride? That's fat.
00:56A glossy send-up of HBO's pitch-dark satire that swaps the resort's toxic vacationers for a Trump-era
01:03inner circle. The White POTUS looks, sounds, and moves like prestige TV, then twists the knife with
01:10cattiness and casual cruelty. The shade lands on politics, yes, but also on the celebrity caricature.
01:17SNL cast member Sarah Sherman's impression of Amy Lou Wood's season three character drew heat for
01:24exaggerated teeth and a cartoonish accent. She now says SNL has reached out to her with a mea culpa.
01:30I've had apologies from SNL.
01:33Wood called the piece mean and unfunny, later saying speaking out felt like breaking a personal pattern
01:39of tolerating bullying. Sherman apologized privately and publicly. The sketch punch isn't subtle.
01:46It's beautiful people doing ugly things and enjoying it.
01:50Oh, look, a monkey!
01:52I'm gonna go kill it and eat it.
01:55No, not the monkey!
01:57Number 19. Kristen Wiig defends Lana Del Rey and blasts her haters.
02:05Based on the public's response, I must have instead clubbed a baby seal while singing the Taliban national anthem.
02:13That's true, Lana. There was a surprisingly big backlash.
02:16Wiig's breathy defense of Lana Del Rey delivered right after the singer's shaky live SNL moment
02:22is a masterclass in backhanded reassurance.
02:25The bit skewers two targets at once.
02:28Lana's deliberately detached persona and the media's sanctimony.
02:33Wiig floats through apologies and self-mythologizing, tossing faux-supportive lines that double as body blows.
02:39Some said I was, quote, the worst musical guest in SNL history.
02:43Well, that is just not true, Lana.
02:45No, Seth.
02:46These critics are absolutely right.
02:49The music stage on Saturday Night Live is hallowed ground.
02:52And I failed to reach the high bar set by past guests like Bubba Sparks, the Baja Men, and Shaggy.
03:00The comedy is in the tonal dissonance.
03:04A porcelain fragile character calmly cataloging every criticism while calling out the ridiculousness of it all.
03:11The segment also shades the internet's pile on culture.
03:14The way a rough performance becomes a referendum on authenticity.
03:18It isn't rage.
03:20It's frostbite, quiet, delicate, and numbingly cold.
03:24I think people thought I was stiff, distant, and weird.
03:31But there is a perfectly good explanation for that.
03:34Uh, what's that?
03:35I am stiff, distant, and weird.
03:37Okay, yeah, yeah.
03:38It's my thing.
03:39I stand still and sing sad songs like this.
03:42Hey!
03:46Number 18.
03:48Complicit.
03:49Every man knows her name.
03:51Every woman knows her face.
03:55When she walks into a room, all eyes are on her.
04:02She's Ivanka.
04:05And a woman like her deserves a fragrance all her own.
04:10Scarlett Johansson's sleek turn as Ivanka is a master class in the art of the understatement.
04:17The parody ad looks exactly like a luxury spot.
04:20Creamy lighting, slow motion filmmaking, hushed VO.
04:24Then drops a single word like a verdict.
04:27Complicit.
04:28It's shade by aesthetic.
04:30The gag isn't that Ivanka is outwardly cruel.
04:33It's that she's stylish while doing nothing.
04:36She's complicit.
04:40She's a woman who knows what she wants.
04:43And knows what she's doing.
04:46Complicit.
04:48She doesn't crave the spotlight, but we see her.
04:53The punchline is the brand strategy itself.
04:55Silence.
04:57But make it beautiful.
04:58The sketch lands because it turns a political critique into a consumer insight.
05:02You don't see the attack coming until the bottle hits the screen.
05:06And by then, the indictment of passivity in the face of authoritarianism is complete.
05:12She's loyal, devoted, but probably should have bounced after the whole excess Hollywood bust thing.
05:20Oh well.
05:21Also, I bet when she watches Titanic, she thinks she's Rose.
05:25Sorry girl, you're Billy Zane.
05:30Complicit.
05:31The fragrance for the woman who could stop all this, but won't.
05:36The show's long-running skewering of L.A. narcissism finds its cruelest edge here.
05:55Even a cancer reveal can't break the character's obsession with hair, hallways, and highway routes.
06:01The shade isn't at illness.
06:03It's at people for whom nothing, not intimacy, not grief, can interrupt mirror gazing.
06:10Um, you have cancer.
06:13Are you serious?
06:15Yeah, man.
06:16Don't even worry, because they're a good treatment center in Marina del Rey.
06:20There's lots of street parking, and if not, there's a coffee bean across the street that fully validates.
06:26I live right by there.
06:28That's how I know.
06:28All the way on the other side of the tent.
06:31The laughter feels guilty, which is why it sticks.
06:34The sketch deglamorizes soap opera melodrama by replacing emotion with three-way directions,
06:39exposing a social world where performance has replaced empathy.
06:43When tragedy arrives and everyone still asks,
06:46which way did you take?
06:48The joke crystallizes.
06:50Vanity is a force field, and it's suffocating.
06:53What are you eating here?
06:56This is supposed to be at the Chino Correctional Center in Southern California.
07:00Well, I escaped.
07:02I ran down and on-ramp and hauled ass across the five,
07:06and then I hitched a ride on the back of a taco truck down to where, like, the 101 meets the 10, you know,
07:11and I told the driver, hey, hang a ride on Alhambra and drop me off on sunset.
07:15Bill Hader's Keith Morrison isn't a hatchet job.
07:32It's a smile with a knife behind it.
07:34The grin, the sing-song cadence, the savoring of grisly details.
07:40SNL shades true crime TV for treating horror like cozy, vicarious bedtime stories.
07:45The craft is in the impression itself, stretched, purring, delighted.
07:50The sketch isn't accusing Morrison of malice.
07:52It's accusing the format of fetish.
07:54And when I came to, my leg was gone.
08:00Oh, did you find it?
08:04No, it had been eaten.
08:06Oh, no.
08:09I'm sorry.
08:11Are you smiling?
08:12No, I'm horrified.
08:16By turning a dismemberment case into a warm bath of TV ticks,
08:21the bit drags an entire genre for pretending to be empathetic while chasing goosebumps.
08:26It's ruthlessly specific, drawing on Hader and his colleague's genuine admiration for Morrison.
08:32And that's why it felt like the age-old institution of television had been put on notice.
08:37She had murdered our neighbors.
08:40Oh, yeah.
08:46Oh, no.
08:48Yeah.
08:49Oh, oh, oh.
08:52Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:54Do you get some sort of strange delight in all this?
08:58I do.
08:59Number 15, Justin Bieber for Calvin Klein.
09:08This tattoo made me say owie.
09:10Master impressionist Kate McKinnon's take on the ubiquitous Canadian pop sensation is the
09:16essence of a thirst trap distilled into a smirk.
09:20The parody obliterates a carefully engineered rebrand.
09:23Black and white swagger, micro tattoos, and underwear waistband peacocking.
09:28The camera loves him.
09:30The sketch, however, does not.
09:32I'm not supposed to drink, but I do.
09:36The shade targets both Bieber and the ad industry's belief that grown-up equals brooding face plus
09:42fog machine.
09:43McKinnon plays the pout as an unshakable habit and the seduction as a tantrum, revealing the
09:49insecurity inside the posturing.
09:51It's a surgical PR deflation that also ribs Calvin Klein himself.
09:55If your campaign can be undone by a raised eyebrow and a tummy poke, it probably wasn't that deep to
10:02begin with.
10:03Number 14, Matthew McConaughey for Lincoln.
10:07Sometimes you gotta go back to actually move forward.
10:11And I don't mean go back and reminisce or chase ghosts.
10:15I mean take a big step back.
10:18Like go from winning an Oscar to doing a car commercial.
10:21Host and superstar comedian Jim Carrey doesn't mock the spacey Oscar winner's obvious talent.
10:28He drowns the Lincoln spot in pseudo-zen vagueness.
10:31Whispery philosophy about destiny and leather steering wheels becomes painful self-parody.
10:37Inspired by a real-life series of ads McConaughey did for the iconic car brand,
10:42the shade hits the luxury ad ecosystem too.
10:45Glossy images, non-sequitur wisdom, and brand mystique masquerading as profundity.
10:51I feel safe in here to drive around all night long, contemplating the important questions
10:59to life.
11:01Who am I?
11:02Why am I here?
11:04When I'm done rolling up this booger, should I eat it or throw it out the window?
11:10Feels good.
11:12Carrey's impression locks onto the musicality of McConaughey's drawl, then pushes it into absurdity.
11:18The kicker is that the sketch didn't need to exaggerate much to get laughs.
11:23That's the meanest compliment.
11:25The original work was already teetering on the edge.
11:29Dad, are you okay?
11:32I'm super good, bud.
11:34You're going five miles an hour.
11:38Not bad for Lincoln.
11:39Whose kids are these?
11:45Number 13.
11:46Janine Pirro gets suspended from Fox News.
11:49I'm John Janine Pirro, and I just want to thank the brave sponsors who stuck with me despite
11:57the accusations by the radical loony left.
12:01To companies like Jeep, I say thank you.
12:04And to Mitsubishi, I say, domo arigato, Cobra Kai.
12:10The outspoken judge and Fox News host has never been one to hold back, and SNL has consistently
12:15kept the same energy toward her.
12:17The update desk becomes a splash zone as Cecily Strong's Pirro sloshes, shouts, and blames
12:23a suspension on conspirators rather than her own words.
12:27The shade is relentless but precise, featuring cadences that turn legalese into barroom monologue,
12:34grievance dressed as patriotism, and victimhood performed at full blast.
12:39So by ignoring the subpoenas, and I'm going to hold your arm for this part, by ignoring
12:44the subpoenas, Trump might actually give Democrats more reason to impeach.
12:48Yes!
12:49You are!
12:51No!
12:52No!
12:52It skewers a media style built on volume over substance, and the gag builds to literal
13:00spillage, converting rhetorical excess into physical comedy, at Colin Jost's expense.
13:06Strong later revived the character in 2025, reminding viewers why the bit works.
13:12The showboating is the point.
13:14Look at this, this is Janine has brought her files and she's ready to work.
13:18Oh, no, this, it's a cozy for my Merlozy.
13:23See, she always comes prepared.
13:25And that rhymed, I like that.
13:29Wowee!
13:30Sweet justice!
13:32Ooh!
13:33Number 12.
13:34106 in Park.
13:36Top 10 live.
13:38And the Kids' Choice Award for best TV show is...
13:41Drake and Josh!
13:43Oh, hell no!
13:46Oh, heck!
13:47Yo, no disrespect, fan, like, I don't even, I haven't seen your show, I don't even watch
13:51Nickelodeon.
13:52But how the hell, they not gonna get a Kids' Choice Awards to Kanye West?
13:58Two years before his infamous Taylor Swift VMA interruption, SNL staged Kanye as a serial
14:04awards show crasher on BET's 106 in Park.
14:07The bit is almost prophetic.
14:10Kenan Thompson and Maya Rudolph's hosts tee up a montage of Kanye barging into increasingly
14:15absurd ceremonies to declare the real winner.
14:18It is my distinct honor to present the Nobel Prize for Physics to John C. Mather and George
14:23F. Smoot for the discoveries in the cosmic microwave background.
14:28Oh, hell no!
14:29That's ridiculous, fam!
14:31How's the Nobel Peace Prize for Physics gonna go to anybody but me?
14:36That's ridiculous!
14:37My album went gold in a day, fam!
14:39Shade isn't just thrown at Kanye's ego, it's at the martyr complex that frames self-promotion
14:45as a moral crusade.
14:47With Kanye in on the joke, he laughed with the show, until life imitated art.
14:53When West permanently altered the trajectory of his career in 2009, this sketch played like
14:59a cautionary tale, nobody heeded.
15:02Then can you explain this?
15:05Man, I ain't gonna have you on Saturday Night Live, man.
15:07I ain't the host, man.
15:08Seriously, man.
15:09I ain't gonna have the Brian James over me, man.
15:12I'm 10 times the performer, man.
15:14I don't care if you got more money.
15:15Man, give a black man, give a short black man a chance.
15:19I don't know what I do.
15:22That was the b**** I said, man.
15:23Number 11, Kathie Lee Gifford and Today.
15:27I finally saw Avatar last night at a hot date with Frank.
15:31Oh, okay.
15:32Your husband, Frank Gifford.
15:33Oh, no, not that Frank.
15:34I am talking about the other Frank in my life.
15:37Franzia Box.
15:38Oh, I am.
15:38Daytime TV's loudest brunch hour meets SNL's sharpest knives.
15:45The Gifford Hoda send-ups torch wine o'clock banter, chaotic interviews, and the forced
15:50intimacy of morning infotainment.
15:53It's on the cadence.
15:55Overbright, overfamiliar, underprepared.
15:57What do you got, Sarah?
15:59Okay, let's see.
16:00Connie from Hartford, Connecticut says,
16:02Kathie Lee, leave Hoda alone, you're drunk.
16:09Why would I leave her alone?
16:11What am I, every guy?
16:15Sketch after sketch, the show mimics a format that sells relatability while smothering substance,
16:20exposing how easily sincerity becomes shtick.
16:24What keeps it from being pure meanness is the accuracy.
16:27You've seen these segments.
16:29Of course, praise must be heaped upon Kristen Wiig's boozy Gifford impression.
16:33The parodies simply turn the dial from 7 to 10, and the smiles from warm to
16:38predatory.
16:39It's friendly TV as a jump scare.
16:42Just call security and tell them a crazy person is loose in the studio, please.
16:46Oh, no, your boyfriend's here.
16:48Oh, to help you get laid, I will.
16:58Number 10, Chevy Chase and President Ford.
17:02I know a fellow who is going to enter the New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Florida, and every
17:09other primary, and I know he is going to win.
17:13And if he has any other competition, right up to the end of 1976.
17:19Hey.
17:19Uh-oh.
17:24No problem.
17:25No problem.
17:26Unlike later SNL depictions of U.S. presidents, Chevy Chase didn't do a voice.
17:32In fact, he didn't do anything to approximate Gerald Ford at all.
17:36He didn't need policy jokes.
17:38He just fell down.
17:39Hard.
17:40Often.
17:41And with commitments.
17:42Until the pratfall became a president.
17:45That's shade at its purest.
17:47A single idea.
17:49So sticky, it rewires public memory.
17:52And if I don't win, I will continue to run in the primaries, even if there are none.
17:59The repetition reads as contempt.
18:01Ford isn't unlucky.
18:03Ford is, simply put, a clumsy dope.
18:06Decades later, the caricature still trails the late president, who died in 2006.
18:11Chase's quote-unquote impression is proof that SNL can brand a politician with one recurring visual.
18:21Yeah, hello.
18:23Hello.
18:25Hello, Nesson.
18:26I can't hear you.
18:27What are you, in the pool?
18:30I guess the other phone's ringing.
18:31I don't know.
18:32All right.
18:33Number 9.
18:34President Bill Clinton at McDonald's.
18:37All right, boys.
18:38Let's stop in here for a second.
18:41I'm a little parked from the jog.
18:43Oh, sir, we've only been jogging for three blocks.
18:46Besides, Mrs. Clinton asked us not to let you into any more fast food places.
18:49Well, I just want to mingle with the American people, talk with some real folks, maybe get a Diet Coke or something.
18:55Phil Hartman's Clinton, playing on the president's public image prior to his massive late-90s scandals,
19:01charms voters while stealing their fries.
19:04Policy as drive-through, boundary-less appetite as governing style.
19:09The walk-and-talk structure lets Hartman play two things at once, folksy appeal and shameless gluttony.
19:15Governor Clinton, I'm a sophomore in college, and I may have to drop out because my parents can't afford the tuition.
19:22Speaking of the devil, that's one of those McLean sandwiches, isn't it?
19:25Yeah, would you like to try it?
19:26Well, maybe just a bite.
19:27That's not bad.
19:36Here, the object of SNL's ridicule is tactile.
19:40Crinkled wrappers, greasy fingers, and a candidate who literally won't stop eating.
19:45It's not a screed about ethics, it's a demonstration of impulses.
19:49How desire leaks into everything.
19:51In five minutes, the sketch captures the paradox of Clinton's political appeal and personal excess better than most biographies.
20:00It's funny, then faintly gross, then weirdly definitive.
20:04Now, with the broad-based international military force, we can make sure that this McRib sandwich gets to the people who need it.
20:18See?
20:19Come on up, folks.
20:20As you all know, our world of television ministries has been rocked by scandal.
20:29Who are these people?
20:31Responsible Christian broadcasters or greedy media sluts?
20:39You be the judge.
20:41As we all know by now, the church lady is sanctimony incarnate, and the televangelist scandals were her natural prey.
20:50The sketch skewers hypocrisy with a sugar-sweet smile, turning piety into performance art and repentance into a PR strategy.
20:58Tammy Faye's streaked mascara and Jim's contrition become props for a character who thrives on moral superiority.
21:05While Jimmy was there, out there drugging and Jesse and reaffirming his manhood, what exactly were you doing?
21:11Well, you know, church lady, those nights just sort of blur together, don't they, honey?
21:15But, you know, Jim would go out every night during crosswits, and that's when I got addicted to all manner of flu pills, and I hallucinated cats on the ceiling.
21:24I did, didn't I, honey?
21:25The shade is theological and theatrical.
21:28Sin treated as spectacle.
21:30Forgiveness as optics.
21:32Dana Carvey's sing-song, well, isn't that special?
21:35Is less a catchphrase than a condemnation.
21:38A comedic authority convicting an entire movement of showy righteousness.
21:43Now, let's think, who would have jammed that bun cake ring down over your head, Tammy?
21:48Who was it?
21:50Who could it possibly be?
21:52Was it, oh, I don't know.
21:55Satan!
21:59Yes, it was!
22:01Oh, really?
22:03Well, well, isn't that extra special?
22:07Number seven, Weekend Update.
22:09Pete Davidson roasts GOP politicians.
22:13This guy's fun.
22:14Rick Scott from Florida.
22:16He looks like someone tried to whittle Bruce Willis out of a penis.
22:20Here's a New York guy, Peter King.
22:29I actually don't know a lot about him, except he looks like if a cigar came to life.
22:36Davidson's update persona is studied nonchalance hiding razor wire.
22:41His infamous shot at then-candidate Dan Crenshaw lit up the news cycle,
22:45prompting a rare on-air reconciliation the following week.
22:49You may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas
22:53and not a hitman in a porno movie.
22:58I'm sorry, I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.
23:02The segment is casual but lethal.
23:06Tossed off lines that question character and motive rather than just policy.
23:10The controversy also underlined SNL's modern calculus.
23:15Viral risk tolerated for cultural reach.
23:18Then clean up in the second act.
23:20Lieutenant Commander Dave Crenshaw, everyone.
23:22Thank you so much for coming.
23:24Thanks for making a Republican look good.
23:26You gotta stop saying that, man.
23:29He's been saying it all day.
23:32Please.
23:33The follow-up bits, bringing Crenshaw onto trade jokes,
23:37didn't erase the sting.
23:38It simply reframed it as must-see TV.
23:41Davidson later publicly recanted his apology to Crenshaw,
23:44claiming that he had been pressured into it.
23:47As such, the edge and the lesson remain.
23:51So we good?
23:52We're good.
23:52Apology accepted.
23:54Just keep breathing.
23:56It sounds like my phone's ringing.
24:02You gonna answer that?
24:03No, and I was just gonna let it ring,
24:05because that's rude to answer.
24:07Let's just let it go to voicemail.
24:08No, it's cool.
24:09Ariana Crenshaw is fine.
24:11Oh, man.
24:12Oh, do you know her?
24:15Number six.
24:17Mike Myers tears Elon Musk a new one.
24:20We love your outfit.
24:21Very official and respectful.
24:23And I love when he gets that chainsaw right next to my head.
24:26Oh, thanks.
24:28Thanks.
24:29Donald, what are you doing in my office?
24:34You know I'm the president now, right?
24:38I'm kidding.
24:39I'm kidding.
24:40Okay.
24:41Maybe not.
24:42Maybe not.
24:42Out of nowhere.
24:44And then, again and again, Canadian comedy legend and Wayne's World star Mike Myers returned
24:50to SNL to play Elon Musk as a self-amused chaos engine, specifically in the wake of Musk's
24:56tenure at the Department of Government Efficiency.
24:58Legalize, company!
24:59Come on!
25:00Legalize!
25:01You know what?
25:04I'm so comfortable with all of that.
25:07I really enjoy everything you're doing with Doge, Elon.
25:11Well, they're saying I'm firing people with no cause.
25:16But I do have cause.
25:18It's cause I feel like it.
25:21Come on!
25:22That was complete with chainsaw props, awkward mannerisms, and shameless Dr. Evil echoes.
25:29The impression doesn't bother flattering genius.
25:31It mocks the brand of genius, from cheese hat stunts to self-vandalizing Teslas.
25:36In multiple cold opens, Myers-Musk hijacks scenes to sell nonsense solutions and bask
25:43in attention, a parody of disruption that treats incompetence as innovation.
25:49The shade works because it's overqualified, a titan of SNL sketchcraft dissecting a titan
25:55of tech hype and enjoying every slice.
25:58Phase one of my plan is complete.
26:00Ingratiate yourself to the president and take over the media.
26:04But was taking this job a bad idea?
26:07A lot of people seem to really hate me.
26:09My Tesla stock is crashing and my personal net worth just dropped by $100 billion.
26:16Number 5.
26:18Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder Duet.
26:20Stevie Wonder, you are aptly named.
26:24Like I said many times, you are truly a wonder.
26:27Thanks a lot, Frank.
26:28Let me ask you something.
26:29Do you do your own hair?
26:31No, I don't.
26:32Then you got no excuse.
26:34Joe Piscopo's volcanic Sinatra and Eddie Murphy's coolly exasperated Stevie Wonder
26:40turn ebony and ivory into a culture war.
26:44Sinatra's brassy insults and oblivious entitlement crash into Wonder's restrained dignity.
26:50The laughs come from the friction and from how dated Sinatra's swagger suddenly feels.
26:55Stevie, now something tells me that this is more than a song about playing the piano.
27:00Uh, Frank, it's about racial equality and unity of all people.
27:05Well, uh, I don't understand.
27:08When I think ebony, I think of a magazine that most people do not buy.
27:13It's not subtle.
27:14Barb decides about style, status, and whose music really matters.
27:18The shade lands as a generational verdict.
27:22Old school masculinity.
27:24Swing dancing on a rug that's already been pulled up.
27:27Uncomfortable at times?
27:28Deliberately so.
27:29The sketch is a living argument about respect dressed up as a duet.
27:33I am dark and you are light.
27:36You are blind as a bat that I have sight.
27:40Side by side, you are my amigo negro.
27:45Let's not fight.
27:48Number four.
27:50Sean Spicer Press Conference.
27:52Now I'd like to begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me.
27:59For how you have treated me these last two weeks.
28:03And that apology is not accepted.
28:07Because I'm not here to be your buddy.
28:10I'm here to swallow gum and I'm here to take nade.
28:15Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy's take on the brief tenure of the former White House press secretary is pure kinetic contempt.
28:21Gum like gavel.
28:23Podium as battering ram.
28:24Fax as chew toys.
28:26The sketch converts a political briefing into slapstick authoritarianism.
28:30Mocking both the temper and the shamelessness of spin.
28:33As you know, President Trump announced his Supreme Court pick on the national TV today when he entered the room.
28:41The crowd greeted him with a standing ovation which lasted a full 15 minutes.
28:47And you can check the tape on that.
28:50Everyone was smiling.
28:52Everyone was happy.
28:54What makes it devastating is how literal and absurd it feels.
28:59The prop podium simply acts out what the words are doing.
29:02Running people over.
29:04The performance reportedly rattled the real Spicer and delighted an audience hungry to see power humble.
29:10It also set a modern template.
29:12When press briefings become theater, the rebuttal will be louder theater.
29:17Does anybody else have any questions?
29:19Yeah, a Wall Street Journal.
29:21Are you okay?
29:22I'm joking.
29:23Come here.
29:27Take it.
29:28Take it.
29:29Take it.
29:30Take it.
29:33You cannot come at me like that.
29:35I will put you in the corner of CNN.
29:37We're not fake news.
29:40Number three.
29:42Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton cold open.
29:44Good evening, my fellow Americans.
29:49I was so excited when I was told Senator Clinton and I would be addressing you tonight.
29:57And I was told I would be addressing you alone.
30:00In one of the storied sketch show's most iconic moments, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler deliver a two-front roast that's stuck to both targets.
30:10Fey's Palin is blithe confidence without depth.
30:14Poehler's Hillary is competence curdled into clenched ambition.
30:17You know, Hillary and I don't agree on everything.
30:21Anything.
30:21I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy.
30:30And I can see Russia from my house.
30:33The script plays like a split-screen verdict on political branding.
30:38Unearned charisma versus earned resentment.
30:40I don't agree with the Bush doctrine.
30:43And I don't know what that is.
30:45But, Sarah, one thing we can agree on is that sexism can never be allowed to permeate an American election.
30:57So, please, stop photoshopping my head on sexy bikini pictures.
31:02The sketch itself mattered because it traveled.
31:06Lines and attitudes bled into mainstream coverage and public memory,
31:10overshadowing the real Palin interviews that inspired it.
31:13Faze Palin remains possibly SNL's best-known and most-beloved political impression,
31:18owing in no small part to its healthy heaping of shade.
31:22While our politics may differ, my friend and I are both very tough ladies.
31:28You know, it reminds me of a joke we tell in Alaska.
31:32Oh, boy.
31:33What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?
31:38Lipstick.
31:39Lipstick.
31:40There you go.
31:42Number two.
31:42Any sketch with Alec Baldwin as President Trump.
31:47Good evening, America.
31:48I am going to be so good tonight.
31:51I am going to be so calm and so presidential that all of you watching are going to cream your jeans.
32:00This wasn't a cameo.
32:02It was a siege.
32:04Baldwin's take on Donald Trump, sniffly, pouty, and self-enchanted,
32:09turned weekly politics into a running farce.
32:11The impression routinely popped up on the news cycle, to the point where a Dominican newspaper
32:16once ran a Baldwin photo as if it were the real president.
32:20Trump's public fury and well-documented distaste for the Emmy winner's impression only amplified
32:25the bit's reach.
32:26Hey, jazz man.
32:28I've got a very presidential answer for this.
32:31Our jobs are fleeing this country.
32:34They're going to Mexico.
32:36They're going to China.
32:40I will stop that.
32:41If Hillary knew how, she would have done it already.
32:43Period.
32:44End of story.
32:45I won the debate.
32:45I stayed calm.
32:46Love or hate the portrayal.
32:48It took up space in the public square and refused to leave.
32:51A form of shade that became canonized.
32:54The key to the gag's long-running shelf life is its unsparing judgment.
32:59A presidency reduced to caricature.
33:02What a nice question.
33:03Thank you, Hoda.
33:06Can I just say you're really doing a great job?
33:10Wow, it is creepier when you're nice, but thank you.
33:12No, really.
33:13You're taking really good care of us tonight.
33:15Now, could you just tell us about the specials, please?
33:17Oh, no.
33:19Mr. Trump, I'm the moderator, not your waitress.
33:22Oh, okay.
33:23Then just some waters then, okay?
33:24Just fine.
33:25Okay.
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33:41Number 1.
33:43Norm Macdonald vs. OJ Simpson and NBC.
33:47Thanks, I'm Norm Macdonald.
33:48And now the fake news.
33:50Well, it is finally official.
33:52Murder is legal in the state of California.
33:57No euphemisms, no hedging.
33:59On Update, Norm simply decided OJ did it.
34:02Then he wrote jokes like he believed the audience deserved honesty.
34:06The relentlessness became the bit, and the bit became legend.
34:09It also cost him greatly.
34:12NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer, a friend of the disgraced athlete and media personality,
34:17removed him from Update mid-season, reportedly as a form of retribution.
34:21That's shade as a moral stance, risking your job to keep the joke brutally on message.
34:27In a brilliant mood during closing arguments, Simpson attorney Johnny Cochran put on the
34:33knit cap prosecutors say OJ wore the night he committed the murders.
34:37Although OJ may have heard his case when he suddenly blurted out,
34:40Hey, hey, hey, easy with that.
34:42That's my lucky stabbing hat.
34:45In hindsight, it reads less as cruelty than clarity, which is why those deadpan punchlines
34:51still circulate every time the case resurfaces.
34:55McDonald's comedy aged into eerily prescient public record.
34:59In his book, OJ Simpson says that he would have taken a bullet or stood in front of a train
35:05for Nicole.
35:06Man, I'm going to tell you that is some bad luck when the one guy who would have died
35:10for you kills you.
35:12That's why the...
35:13You don't get worse luck than that.
35:18Did we miss any of SNL's shadiest moments?
35:21Be sure to tell us in the comments below, because who knows?
35:24Your suggestion could be featured in a future video.
35:27Let's go.
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