The Pat Stevens Show sketches were so bad you probably don’t even remember them.
I hated, hated that Billy Crystal bit and was the first one I thought of when I heard “worst SNL skit”. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven him for those skits. I want to like you Billy but then I remember. shudder I also hated the Al Franken Stuart Something, “I’m good enough, smart enough and doggone it, people like me.” I also hated the Mary Catherine Gallagher, Will Ferrel cheerleading and anyone doing the lounge lizard singing bits. Bill Murray did one, a couple female SNL’ers did a duo where they were always in fancy dresses and Will F and some other chick did one where they go to school assembies and sing popular songs and make them very unhip. Hate anything like those kind of skits.
I like the Samurai, Bass-o-matic and Celebrity Jeopardy.
I don’t know if they are recurring sketches, per se, but I’ve always enjoyed the commercials. “Obsession - it’s what’s between cleanliness and godliness”, Change Bank, etc.
A couple of John Lovitz’s stuff comes to mind: Mephistopholes (especially when he had to appear on the Peoples Court (“Yes, your honor, I am a bar hag!”)), the liar “Yeah, that’s the ticket!”, and the sketches he did with Tom Hanks as the two losers “Here she comes… and there she goes.” “She walked past you like you weren’t even there.”
I also like Mike Meyers doing the NYC talk show in drag… “talk amongst yourselves.” And Phil Hartman as Caveman Lawyer was pretty good.
Least favorite: Adam Sandlers recurring characters on Weekly Update all sucked. The only decent one was when he premiered the Hannukah song, which immediately went into Overplayed mode.
I’d vote for Mr Robinson’s Neighborhood and Church Lady as among the funniest.
Eg/
When Eddie Murphy catnapped a neighborhood pet. “Today’s word of the day: ‘ransom’. As in 'I ran some cat outta da yard and now I got 'im.”
and Chruch Lady’s: “Hallowe’en Jack-O’-Lantern: innocent carved-out vegetable? Or frozen deathmask cortorted in rage and hate?”
Wow, 43 posts and no one has hit the single worst repeating bit ever - Dog Show!
That was a large part of why I quit watching SNL. A few years later, I got sucked in to watch an episode, and they still had Dog Show on! Never been back. Even to look at Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin. (I’ve seen clips on the web, but won’t watch the show.)
Worst: Gumby, Dammit and Brain Fellows. I just sat there staring blankly wondering “why is this funny?”
Best: the commercials are almost always a highlight.
This. I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, though.
Land Shark is my all time favorite, though it’s funnier in my memory than the actual skit.
Best: Celebrity Jeopardy; Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker
Worst: Colin Quinn, Weekend Update host
Oh, and for worst, how did I forget Gilly? Torture.
Worst- airline attendants, “buh bye” or whatever.
Gilly is actually the sketch that made me start this thread-----I am amazed that Kristen Wiig agrees to appear in something this toxic. It may well be the single most tragic attempt at comedy I have ever had the misfortune of watching…
(maybe what kills me so much about it is that I actually happen to think that Kristen Wiig is about the utter most physically attractive woman on television today, and to see her debase the very notion and concept of humor and comedy is hard to watch. When I finally meet her and we fall madly and passionately in love, I promise I will put an end to it—no thanks is needed)
I’m surprised so many people liked Farley’s motivational speaker, it made me uncomfortable. I thought Farley was going to drop dead during one of those skits.
By far the best of the recent seasons are Vinny Vedecci on RAI, and The Falconer, two of the few sketches that I actually look forward to seeing. Worst…pretty much 98% of the rest of the show that isn’t Weekend Update or Joe Biden. Absolute worst is The Target Lady - every sketch is EXACTLY the same, and it wasn’t even funny the first time!
Dog Show is THE absolute worst thing in the history of SNL. It got to the point where I would mute or change the channel the moment I saw that sketch starting.
Actually Sanz plays her Uncle named Rick.
I love those sketches. Post-baby Poehler probably couldn’t pull them off since she looks sooo wispy in those sketches you kind of buy that she’s an 8 year old girl.
Just the other day at the grocery store I saw a girl who was acting exactly like the character.
Hey dad! You know what I learned about banaaaaanaaas today? Their yelloooowww-not ORANGE! Oh an apple!
Best: Celebrity Jeopardy, of course. I’m also very fond of “The Chris Farley Show” (CF: “Do you, um, you remember the Beatles?” Paul McCartney: “Yes, Chris, I do.”)
God, I had forgotten about this. I saw only one of these, as I had phased out on SNL by then, but I remember thinking that it was not only the funniest, but oddly the sweetest SNL sketch I had seen in years. Something about Rick’s calm patience in the face of Poehler’s boundless energy endeared me.
Not sure if this was recurring, but Dana Carvey once did a sketch as Tom Brokaw pre-taping the news.
The premise was was he going on vacation for six months, and they were recording him reading headlines for news stories that MIGHT happen while he was away. We come in after the session has been going on for a while, and they’re up to various permutations of Gerald Ford’s death.
“Former president Gerald Ford was eaten by wolves today…”
Best premise for a sketch ever.
Least funny: Anything by Adam Sandler - take your pick.
I loved Church Lady and Coffee Tawk was always good for quotability factor. Wayne’s World was in a class by itself. I also almost always enjoyed the fake commercials. I was sad when they stopped doing “Bad Idea jeans” ads. Cracked me up every time.
Hated Goat Boy, Mary Catherine Gallager, the creepy teachers and their singing, Pat, and most sketches from the 90s because they lasted about 5 minutes too long. No one at SNL in the 90s knew how to end a joke.
I first became a fan of SNL during its Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman/Jon Lovitz heyday, so a lot of my favorite sketches are from that era - Wayne’s World, Jon Lovitz’s Shakespearan actor guy, Carvey’s George Bush. And I have to admit, I actually really did like Hans and Franz, but I was also a pretty big Schwarzenegger fan back in the day.
My least favorite: Linda Richman’s coffee talk. I just never saw anything funny about it, and the stereotypical New York accent Mike Myers did was annoying as hell. Whenever it came on, I changed the channel.
I actually did like Sandler in a lot of the one-off sketches, but his recurring characters (with the possible exception of Canteen Boy) sucked. Opera Man was the worst. It’s a gimmick that might have been funny the first time, but they overdid it big time.
Least funny: anything with Will Forte.
One of the best: Al Franken as the self-contained reporting team from decades ago.