Who could forget Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford with his dog, Liberty? Heel, Liberty, heel
Mike Myers as Simon with, as his guest, Vinnie (Danny DeVito) from Atlantic City whose dad is in a questionable line of work Simon with Vinnie
And I can’t believe no one has yet to mention Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey Deep Thoughts
I was in 4th grade when SNL debuted. There was only one other kid in my class that was allowed to watch it (Hey, Brent, if your out there). We talked to each other at lunch on Monday mornings seeing if one got the jokes the other one didn’t get.
Robert Klein on the show where the giant lobsters took over Manhattan. The joke was allowed to build throughout the show, and the ending was hilarious.
The black and white film starring John Belushi as the last Original SNL cast member alive… walking through a cold bleak snow-strewn cemetary. And then having John die first. That’s memorable.
Like commasense, I’ve seen most of the episodes from the first one guest-hosted by George Carlin. Most of my favorite moments have already been mentioned by others, but one of the most memorable was a blooper during one of the NPR skits. I’m fuzzy on the details, but I think it was about 10 years ago and the guest was Alec Baldwin. The skit was about wieners, as a euphemism for penis. The skit goes on for awhile with every possible joke about penuses, with wiener being substituted, until (you knew it had to happen) one of the cast members said “pener” instead of “wiener”. The skit completely self-destructed after that. What is worse, Mrs Flex thought it was so funny that she now thinks that should be the official name for, er, Little Flex. :rolleyes:
Another item worthy of mention - I believe SNL influenced the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. After the first debate, the Al Gore sighing was parodied on that week’s SNL and came to national attention, in my opinion largely because of SNL. This forced Gore to overreact and caused Bush to be perceived as the winner of the debates overall (or at least on par, which is equivalent since Gore was so highly favored).
It always surprises me when I read these SNL threads that my wife and I are the only ones who LOVE the Jerry Seinfeld in OZ penitentiary skit. It’s toward the top of my list, with
Schmitt’s GAY beer (with the original Van Halen soundtrack),
Cookie Dough Gatorade,
“Must be my lucky day! I’ll the The Rapists for 100, Alex.”
Okay, I skimmed through some of this thread, but some noteworthy sketches I haven’t seen mentioned;
“Let’s Talk and Talk and Talk and Talk and Talk About the Movies” - with Phil Hartman’s brilliant lampoon of Charlton Heston in “Soylent Green.”
Gilda Radner as Lucy Ricardo in a take-off of the “I Love Lucy” candy-conveyor belt episode. In the skit, Radner/Lucy had to work on a conveyor belt in which she had to put whip cream & a cherry on the top of a series of nuclear warheads. (I’d bet money that whoever dreamed this one up was on LSD at the time.)
The evening (Eddie Murphy era) that the show had a real call-in poll on whether or not to kill “Larry the Lobster.”
The triangle-playing uber-nerd that Martin Short played. I forget his name - was it Ed Grimsby?
Leona Helmsley (Nora Dunn), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Victoria Jackson), and Jim Bakker (forget who) all tunnelling out of jail and escaping in Tammy Faye’s (Jan Hooks) getaway car and going on a cross-country crime spree.
The Whiners.
Christopher Guest as the lowly bodega worker who realizes that the mat at the front entrance has the magical ability to open doors.
Joe Piscopo as the seedy lounge pianist and Eddie Murphy as his near-derelict friend. Not a laugh-out loud sketch, but it was very touching and fun to watch.
He’s done two that I remember as a doctor. In one, he had delivered 100% girls, about 50% of whom required that operation.
There was another where he was a doctor in a Soap Opera and he kept screwing up the names of medical terms. The one I remeber best was him saying “anal canal” as if canal rhymed with anal with that total serious look on his face.
Tom Hanks as Mr. Short Term Memory. The blind date with Victoria Jackson.
OR
Will Farrell, in a skit produced just before the 2000 elections, titled “A glimpse of our possible future,” playing President George W. Bush, who has pretty much destroyed America just a few weeks after taking office. No transcript available, but it was the cold open for the 11/04/2000 show. Thank God it didn’t turn out to be that bad, right?
Whew, I was right. Sketch was called “Wing Tips” and aired Nov 17, 1984.
I lot of people complain about the early to mid 80s but there were a lot of gems hidden amongst the crappy stuff. At the very least they were more creative then any SNL cast I’ve seen in the last 10 years. Like when Buckwheat got shot. Or when they had a stand-up bit like Harry Anderson or Joel Hodgson.
My favorite was a Killer Bee Sketch with Buck Henry as a professor, and John Belushi as the Killer Bee, trying to argue about his grade. In the end, Buck says, “fine, I’ll give you a B plus” and hands over a baby in a bee suit.
Any of the Land Shark scenes, especially if the word Candy-gram was used.
