Worst: Cheerleader sketch, honorable mention: the hip high school music teachers, also Will Ferrell.
Best: Church Lady. Honorable mention: Tommy Flanagan, the habitual liar.
This. Forget anything from the '80’s.
While Jeopardy wins, hats off to Sprockets, Goth Talk, Brian Fellows and Ambiguously Gay Duo.
I’m going with the Coneheads for best classic recurring sketch, and Celebrity Jeopardy more recently.
Worst – Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen as “Nooni and Nooni.” They have weird chairs, serve weird food, and pronounce people’s names wrong. That’s about it. As a one-off, it would have just been an odd bit that didn’t quite work. But for some reason they kept going back to this clunker week after week after week, without ever introducing any new jokes into it. Just 5 more minutes of sitting in weird chairs, serving weird food, and pronouncing people’s names wrong. Horribly tedious.
There’ve been many cases where they started out with a decent bit, but killed it by going to the well a few too many times. Here I’d include Mary Catherine Gallagher, the Roxbury Guys, MacGruber, Deep House Dish, Bronx Beat, Debbie Downer, the Boston teens (“You’re retahded!” " No, YOU ah!"), even the much-reviled cheerleaders.
But Nooni and Nooni started out bad and stayed bad.
IMO, the funniest recurring sketches (can’t pick just one):
Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood
Mr. Bill
Toonces the Driving Cat
Wayne’s World
Fernando’s Hideaway
“Jane You Ignorant Slut!”
Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey (although they got old after awhile)
Hands down, the worst sketch in the history of the show has got to be “Pat the Androgynous Person.” It wasn’t even funny enough to sustain a single outing, and was already tiresome by the second time around.
Least funny: Cheerleaders. Runnerup: Mary Catherine Gallagher
Funniest: Coneheads Runnerup: Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford
No love (hate?) for the Cougars? Pretty unwatchable IMO. Although the one (I forget who) does look simultaneously drugged out and high, as opposed to the others who just look a little buzzed, that would make it almost watchable for her alone if it only were a little shorter.
Chris Farley as Matt Foley-- the motivational speaker who was 35 years old, thrice divorced, and lives in a van down by the river-- was one of my all-time favorites. Goddamn, was Farley a funny man!
I’ll also list Celebrity Jeopardy as one of the funniest, along with Nick the Company Computer Guy, because I can relate to guys like him. Ditto for the Church Lady. Classic stuff.
As for least funny, I’m having trouble remembering them because my mind tends to cast out that which does not interest me. I’ll have to go with Goat Boy since I thought that was a rather limp skit.
While Mary Catherine Gallagher wasn’t my favorite I liked it. Hell, I would have even dated a girl like that when I was in high school.
I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not.
Jane, you ignorant slut.
That is why Mr. Chase will always be the best weekend update host.
Worst: Jan Hooks / Nora Dunn doing the bad lounge singer girls. Awkward and awful.
Best: Toonces!
I never watched enough to say - but I’ve seen instances of the following sketches that made me laugh:
Jeopardy - more than one.
Samurai (Samurai Night Fever made me laugh)
Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts
Land Shark
Killer Bees (The Bad News Bees made me laugh “Tommy’s buzzing off” (OK, it might not have been “Tommy”))
Funniest - Celebrity Jeopardy, Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, Church Lady
Least funny - Adam Sandler’s recurring characters on Weekend Update…Cajun Man, Annoying Man, etc…I have never understood how anyone seeing Sandler’s work on SNL decided he would be good for movies (although I’m glad someone did - I’ve been surprised at how many of his movies I like - but his pre-movie stuff on SNL was horrible!).
Don’t forget the creepy college professor “Love-ahs.”
Best: Wayne’s World and/or Celebrity Jeopardy
Worst: Horatio Sanz as “Carol” or maybe the Target lady
Most underappreciated: Amy Poehler as the hyper little girl with stepfather named Rick
I know this is about the same as admitting that I am a chapter vice president of NAMBLA, but I actually thought Horatio Sanz’ “Carol” was pretty damn funny…
I’m pretty much with you on these, except I thought Sandler’s songs could be pretty clever at times.
Adding for most: The “Jane, you ignorant slut” exchanges
And least: Target
My favorites are mostly original cast sketches. Samurai, Wild & Crazy Guys, Garrett Morris as “Besebol been bery bery good to me” guy, and the Cheeseburger, No Coke, Pepsi diner.
Bill Brasky, with Alec Baldwin - funniest
Bill Brasky, no Alec Baldwin - least funny
Worst: Anything where Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz broke character and started laughing in the middle of it.
Best: Celeb Jeopardy, Wayne’s World, Nick Burns your Company’s Computer Guy mostly because that WAS my husband at one point in his career.
True. And I felt the same way about Bill Murray’s bad lounge singer act.
My nomininations for best recurring sketch featuring a recurring host are “Miles Cowperthwaite” with Michael Palin, and “The Continental” with Christopher Walken.