50 Greatest ‘Saturday Night Live’ Sketches of All Time

Original Airdate: April 17th, 1976

When NBC's beautifully named network censor Herminio Traviesas first heard about this sketch from Season One, he actually thought Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin would be having actual sex on camera. In reality, they merely rolled around while the Supreme Court stood by telling them what they could and couldn't do – "forcibly remove Dwyane's hand from underneath the blankets," Dan Aykroyd rules. It might be the show's greatest commentary on the nexus of sex and politics.

Original Airdate: October 20th, 1984

In the pre-Fallon era, cast members breaking character and laughing were rare occasions. And to catch a pro like Billy Crystal losing it at the end of this sketch, to the point that he can barely utter his last line, or even walk in the right direction offstage, is almost shocking. But then, it was Christopher Guest's incredible poker face that broke him down. Even before the sketch takes the dark turn that becomes its hook, Guest makes the most of a throwaway line like "a stallion needs to run," staring ahead intensely, leaning into the audience's laughter, "and run free."

Original Airdate: May 8th, 1976

The first season of SNL featured this darkly hilarious depiction of Nixon's final days in the White House. Played by a perfectly glowering Dan Aykroyd, the Watergate-besieged president drunkenly talks to a picture of Abe Lincoln on the wall ("Abe, you were lucky. They shot you") and demands John Belushi's Henry Kissinger to join him in prayer ("Don't you want to pray, you Christ-killer?"). The sketch was written by future U.S. Senator Al Franken and the late Tom Davis and goes well beyond easy political satire into something far deeper: "Tom was very, very oriented towards human feelings and very sensitive," Aykroyd told Rolling Stone when Davis died in 2012. "So, when they wrote the Nixon piece, which was lifted right off the pages of history, it's a little sentimental, it's a little sad. When Nixon goes to his knees you almost feel sorry for him, because he's at the bottom."

Original Airdate: December 19th, 2009

The scatterbrained singing duo Garth & Kat, played by Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig, brought real danger to live televison: If they always appeared to be inventing their holiday songs on the spot, it's because they were. "He definitely starts and I just try to follow," Wiig told Movieline. "We don't rehearse. The first time we do it that week is literally at the dress rehearsal." Armisen has referred to Garth as his favorite SNL character, and though Wiig has had several more popular characters, she has said that Kat was the "most fun" to perform. "So much of the show is writing, working, deadlines, trying to figure things out, punching up your sketch, knowing you're going to perform live," she said. "And that two and a half minutes of airtime is so freeing and fun."

Original Airdate: May 20th, 2006

A quick case for Will Forte as the most underrated cast member in SNL history. He didn't get the fête that Kristin Wiig and Andy Samberg received on their exits and, along with Jason Sudekis, he pushed SNL's male WASP count too high. But Forte, more than any other recent cast member, could walk the line between funny and genuinely unsettling. His nondescript face was the perfect canvas for shut-ins and right-wing conspirators like his recurring character the Falconer. In the Falconer's time travel sketch, each cast member (and host Kevin Spacey) mimics Forte's character, but they're unable to match the barely-contained psychosis of the original. This kind of absurdist Forte was too often relegated night's final segment. In some way, his outsider characters have prepared him for his acclaimed role in the Oscar-nominated film Nebraska. We're sure to see more of him soon.

Original Airdate: November 16th, 1996

Norm MacDonald's presence on SNL included a constant scraping of the fourth wall – his Weekend Update sign-on was "I'm Norm MacDonald and now, the fake news," after all. Maybe the best showcase for his deadpan, tirelessly sardonic, matter-of-fact personality was the sketch where he played the hapless ringleader of a West Side Story-style street gang confused by all the impromptu singing. Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan – folks who put everything into a role – provided the necessary juxtaposition for MacDonald's voice of reason.

Original Airdate: May 18th, 1996

Jim Carrey is probably the biggest comedy star launched into movies by a sketch show other than Saturday Night Live, and when he finally hosted in 1996, he was at the peak of his fame. Ten minutes before the end of the show – the infamous timeslot where the darkest sketches often wind up – Carrey unleashed the deranged Fire Marshall Bill side of his In Living Color days as Jimmy Tango, the host of a weight loss program predicated primarily on smoking crystal meth. The sketch comes horrifyingly alive when Carrey has a showdown with his future box-office competition, a blood-gushing Will Ferrell, still working out his oft-yelling persona in his first season.

Original Airdate: January 21st, 1978

Rumor has it that Nick the Lounge Singer (his last name changed with every sketch) was based on Chicago's Jimmy Damon, who was crooning at nightclubs during Murray's tenure at Second City. And 25 years after Nick's SNL debut, the character inspired director Sofia Coppola to give Murray a karaoke scene in Lost in Translation. But it's best known for the hilarious conceit of adding lyrics to the theme song that was stuck in everyone's head in 1978 during the first wave of Star Wars mania.

Original Airdate: January 11th, 1997

Long before his Oscar-winning roles in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, Kevin Spacey was doing stand-up comedy in bowling alleys. He honed a few impressions in his youth, and when SNL invited him into their usual game of celebrity Mad Libs – Burt Reynolds as Darth Vader? The joke writes itself! – he turned it into a national platform for a special hidden talent. His Christopher Walken (as Han Solo) and his Walter Mathau (as Obi-Wan Kenobi with a golf club in his hand) were as good as anyone in the cast could have conjured.

Original Airdate: January 20th, 1996

Although he progressively loosened up more and more in later hosting gigs, Alec Baldwin became an SNL legend during his initial hosting run in the '90s by being able to play so perfectly off of his affable movie star persona. This video holiday card is a rare example of a host confident enough to carry a sketch all by himself, and it's hard to imagine anyone else pulling off the sketch's straight-faced references to a variety of fill-in-the-blank religious affiliations, always ending with "Voodoo."

Original Airdate: May 15th, 1999

Animal talk show host Brian Fellow was inspired by someone that Tracy Morgan's ex-wife knew in high school – Morgan built a character around her descriptions. "I said he was this weird gay dude who imagined stuff in his head and thought he knew everything. My man [SNL writer] Tim Herlihy picked right up on that shit," Morgan said in his autobiography, adding that Herlihy came up with the animal element. "A delusional gay guy interviewing animals? What the fuck is that, Tim?" Tracy Jordan's tenure on SNL, sorely underappreciated at the time, spawned a host of running characters who were hysterically strange but never quite took off, from Astronaut Jones to Dominican Lou. But few were stranger than Fellow, a dense young man who hosted a show about animals despite seeming to lack even the most basic understanding of the animals or their surroundings ("The rainforest, that sounds wet!"). Few SNL cast members have had a greater knack for delivering a sublimely stupid line, and Jordan gave it all with signoffs like "Join us next week, when our guests will be a dog, and a baby dog."

Original Airdate: February 17th, 2001

"I worked so hard for so long to create an environment where people were nice, where people were treated nice, and where people realized how important it was to be nice," former Barney's New York shoe buyer Jeffrey Kalinsky told the Advocate And then there was a skit, and it needed a name, and somehow because we were new in town and doing something different and cool, it got associated with not acknowledging people. It was polar opposite to everything I'm about… All my friends, anybody that I knew, thought it was the most incredible, wonderful thing in the whole world and that I should be thrilled." In this recurring sketch, Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon (and whatever guest host was around) sent up the high-end store Jeffrey, a designer-stuffed house of haute owned by Kalinsky. When Will & Grace's Sean Hayes hosted in 2001, he joined Fallon on the floor in a sketch that peaked with Ferrell answering a cell phone approximately the size of a paperclip – and then peaked again when Fallon and Hayes succumbed to the giggles. Real life outpaced its farcical counterpart seven years later, when Christian Dior launched its very own miniphone – although the $5100 gadget one-upped the SNL writers' snob fantasia by adding a mirror.

Original Airdate: October 11th, 1975

Taboo subject matter (it's a joke about sexual assault, though they were able to demonstrate legitimate disgust), an unforgettable performance from Gilda Radner, and a big payoff. From the very first episode – airing between Billy Preston performing "Nothing From Nothing" and Andy Kaufman's brilliant Mighty Mouse pantomime – comes a structurally simple and socially complicated sketch that set the tone for the next 39 years.

Original Airdate: January 14th, 1995

You know that thing where Paul Rudd always shows the same clip on Conan? Here's its ridiculous successor. After Letterman, Get a Life, and Cabin Boy, cult bizarro-comedy star Chris Elliott found himself adrift on one the most maligned SNL seasons in history. With Jeff Daniels as a hapless victim, he keeps replaying the diarrhea scene from Dumb & Dumber – Elliott carrying the type of puerile, childish sketch that 30 Rock spoofs with "Fart Machine," but with the straight, unsettling, manchild delivery that is his trademark. Life imitated art in 2010 when CNN aired the same scene.

Original Airdate: October 30th, 1993

"Adam doesn't have much interest in being cool or hipper than the room," Judd Apatow told SPIN about his occasional collaborator. "He's not fascinated by pop culture. He is purely hilarious in his own space. He's not about irony. He's not a smartass. He's not cynical. He just loves being funny." What other explanation could there be for gut-busting hilarity of Sandler's ballin'-on-a-budget Halloween costumes – literally, just some simple props ("I'm Crazy Pickle Mustache!"), some goofy faces ("I'm Shaky Lip Guy!"), and some funny voices ("I'm Crazy Teabag Mouth!" And I do believe I want some candy!") The third installment was his most finessed.

Original Airdate: February 16th, 1991

The legendary Phil Hartman cuts a unique figure in comedy, his stock in trade being characters that are ostensibly straight-laced on the surface, but utter jackasses just underneath – from Troy McClure on the Simpsons to Bill McNeal on Newsradio. So while the MetroCard commercial spoof gets big laughs simply by letting Hartman and host Roseanne Barr be a predictable contrast of rough and smooth, but the genius is in how their different accounts of the same phone call slowly reveal Hartman as an unreliable narrator.

Original Airdate: October 7th, 1978

"The censor said, 'Don't put that pencil in there,'" Dan Aykroyd says in Live From New York, recalling a sketch that racily revealed some male posterior on network TV years before David Caruso. "I was checking this fridge and I had put the pencil somewhere. 'Don't put the pencil there!' And of course I said I wouldn't, but then on the air, I did. And you know – massive laugh." In the bit, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner's noogie-loving "nerds" – electric characters that writer Anne Beatts says were inspired by Elvis Costello – couldn't keep their eyes on their homework because Aykroyd was showing off his pencil holder. ("The moon came out surprisingly early," exclaims Murray as Todd.) "Todd and Lisa ended up mirroring [Murray and Radner’s] relationship in a sick way," said Beatts in the book American Nerd. "Billy had this girlfriend who he ended up marrying… and when Gilda would laugh louder at all of his sketches when they were being read, you knew that they were together. But I think that mild sadism of Todd toward Lisa was a reflection of the dynamic of their relationship."

Original Airdate: March 13th, 1999

Comedian Ray Romano seemed all too happy to leave behind the domestic concerns of Everybody Loves Raymond for an absurd turn as an ESPN anchor who can't stop blurting out failed attempts at banter. ("Hey! Try not to shoot that puck up my pooper!") There's no better way to have your cake and eat it too in comedy than to ridicule catchphrases in a way that itself spawns it's own catchphrase, and "Sweet Sassy Molassy" has entered the pantheon as a minor catchphrase in its own right. Boo-yah!

Original Airdate: January 24th, 1987

One could almost feel the writers and the cast working extra hard to prop up a decent show around guest host Joe Montana, somebody whose acting experience, by 1987, likely didn't even include posing for a Wheaties box. They put together a sketch that made the absolute most of a guileless, slightly wooden performer, who, memorably, was brave enough to pull off a hysterical, nuclear bomb of a final punchline.

Original Airdate: January 21st, 1977

Bill Murray's portrayal of the romantically inclined Family Feud host Richard Dawson reached its peak in this obtuse take on the coneheaded clan of Beldar, Prymat, and Connie Clorhone. Dawson had a penchant for smooching female contestants as he went about his introductions – hey, it was the Seventies – and Connie being young (and from France) provided a neat excuse for Dawson to go all deep-throat French kissyface in one of the least erotic smooches to ever be committed to television history.

Original Airdate: May 11th, 2003

Written by Tina Fey, this commercial parody was inspired by a pair of high-waisted jeans she accidentally purchased after a fire in her apartment wiped out her wardrobe. "And I was going around the office complaining about them all night, joking about it, and Maya Rudolph and I started singing a little Mom Jeans song," she told Vogue. By 2004, SNL's long-held reputation as a "boys' club" was changing. Fey was in her third season as head writer, and the women in the cast – Fey, Rudolph, Amy Poehler, and Rachel Dratch – were increasingly front-and-center. This opened up all kinds of comic possibilities, most notably the skit that popularized the phrase "mom jeans," assuring low-rise denim for the remainder of the decade.

Original Airdate: December 9th, 1978

Public television staple (and spy!) Julia Child got sent up by Dan Aykroyd in which a mishap with a knife turns a simple chicken recipe into a Carrie-style bloodbath. At a celebration for Child in 2012, her former collaborator (and celebrity chef in his own right) Jacques Pepin revealed that the iconic sketch was based on an actual incident. The two were prepping for a TV appearance when Child sliced her finger, and Pepin tried to stop the bleeding with a kitchen towel – and failed. There was even a close-up of the wound! Child allegedly loved the tribute.

Original Airdate: February 13th, 1992

Penned by Robert "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" Smigel, this short bit is the guerilla comedy version of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, providing a stark, darkly comedic view of meat production and consumption in America. This bit predates, by two years, the Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" which also starred Phil Hartman ("Meat and You: Partners in Freedom") and this evening's musical guest, Paul McCartney! Between the two shows, it all might have turned more Gen-Xers into vegetarians than any nude celebrity PETA stunt.

Original Airdate: March 12th, 1977

"When I was in college, I would tape Dan Aykroyd off the television, tape his Jimmy Carter, shamelessly practice it, and then go to the clubs and just steal it, do his Jimmy Carter," said Dana Carvey in the book Live From New York. "Then eight, nine years later, Danny's in the office going, 'I really like your George Bush.' It was kind of surreal." In this classic sketch, SNL answers the question: How hip could the President be in the pre-Clinton era? Well, president Carter, in the hands of Aykroyd, was able to identify a brand of acid as "orange sunshine" from a phone call, and even helped a young constituent on a bad trip. ("Do you have any Allman Brothers?")

Original Airdate: May 9th, 1992

Tom Hanks sells this twisted sketch about obsessive Christopher Hewitt fans so well that it's difficult to imagine if this would have made it to air at all, if he hadn't come in as a last minute replacement for original host Joe Pesci. "When you're there for a while, you begin to recognize the patina of a sketch that has yet to be on air because no one has fully committed to it," Hanks said in the Live From New York book. The Guy Who Plays Mr. Belvedere Fan Club" could be of historical importance as well, as the dawn of '80s kitsch – the decade, and Mr. Belvedere itself, had ended less than three years before, but already the mere name of the show felt like a curio of a bygone era.

Original Airdate: October 25th, 1996

This sketch was originally filmed for the Dana Carvey Show, the ill-fated, quickly cancelled ABC show whose cast and writers' room – Louis C.K., Robert Smigel, Stephen Colbert, Charlie Kauffman, Steve Carell, Jon Glaser, etc. – would basically foretell the next 18 years of comedy. The show was, infamously, not ready for prime time, and was canned before this classic sketch could air. So Carvey performed it on SNL, where it promptly became a classic, the first of many "told you so's" that the Carvey staff would boast over the next two decades.

Original Airdate: May 19th, 2001

The last episode for writer Adam McKay (who would go on to write Anchorman) and the last to feature Chris Parnell (who would get rehired shortly after). This sketch begins as a silly, surreal platform for Christopher Walken’s typically loopy job interviewer. But what slowly begins to emerge is actually a crushingly dark racial allegory, as Walken grills his minority applicant about the most scandalous aspects of his life, like Centaur porn and ass-wiping techniques, ignoring his medical credentials entirely.

Original Airdate: May 9th, 1998

A fairly straightforward parody of the over-simplified questions on Jeopardy!'s actual celebrity episodes, this recurring sketch hit its stride in its fourth installment, which escalated the hostile relationship between Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek and Darrell Hammond's Sean Connery. (It also contains Hammond's classic mispronunciation of the category "Therapists"). Despite the many jokes about his mustache and his mother, the real Trebek admired the sketch. "Every taping, somebody in the audience says 'How do you feel about the Will Ferrell impression of you on SNL?' And I say the same thing every time: I love it," Trebek told the Hollywood Reporter. As for Hammond's jeering Connery impression, it soon took on a life of its own. "I go around the country and people will yell out Sean Connery lines," Hammond said in a 2007 interview. "It's the most popular thing I ever did."

Original Airdate: December 15th, 1984

In some ways, Mr. Robinson was a crude stereotype (a black version of Mr. Rogers who – surprise – lives in the ghetto and leads a life of crime) and in other ways, it was savvy, razor-sharp social satire (jokes about white flight, Reaganomics, racist cabbies abounded). But the real draw was the absolute glee with which Eddie Murphy threw himself into the role, – even more than he did with every role. In the Christmas installment, Mr. Robinson explains his hustle to the children while wearing a Santa suit and a shit-eating grin: "With this little operation, I figure I'll be taking on about $300, 400 a day. Oh, why oh why, must Christmas come but once a year?" Rising SNL star (and occasional Eddie Murphy impersonator) Jay Pharoah always mentions how the Mr. Robinson sketches were a formative influence.

Original Airdate: February 16th, 1991

The comedy in the Jack Handey-penned commercial spoof isn't merely the contrast between the ostensibly innocent toy and the apparent risks involved in playing with it. It's that the entirety of the 90-second ad consists of Phil Hartman's increasingly ominous voiceover, where legal disclaimers begin with the relatively innocuous ("Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete") and gradually ramp up to outright science fiction ("Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include and unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space"). In turn, it's become sort of a geek-culture favorite, referenced in video games like Unreal Tournament 2004, World of Warcraft ("happy fun rock") and N+.

Original Airdate: December 12th, 1998

Ana Gasteyer, who wrote and starred in this legendarily naughty sketch, went on the actual NPR in 2012 to dish on the origins of this public radio send-up: "It was sort of a combination between [NPR's] "The Splendid Table" and a show that was aptly named, a show called "Good Food," on KCRW… You don't need to go to a commercial," she said about the secret to public radio's studiously understated intonation. "You don't need to leave, you just need to take your time and explore a subject to the point that people want to weep with boredom." Alec Baldwin, of course, was Pete Schweddy, a man who was producing a holiday treat – balls, branded with his name and sold in sacks. Those who didn't get the joke on first utterance would get multiple chances. So iconic was this simple bit of wordplay that Ben & Jerry's produced an ice cream in honor of the skit in 2011. "My parents tried it, which I thought was the funniest thing in the world," Gasteyer said. "My mom called. She said, 'Dad laid in a supply of Schweddy Balls.' OK, and then she goes, 'Zowee, is it rich.'"

Original Airdate: April 22, 1978

Steve Martin is one of SNL's all-time greatest hosts not merely for the record-holding frequency with which he's appeared (second only to Alec Baldwin), but for how he was the rare host that brought his own comedic sensibility to bear on the show's format. Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber was typical SNL in its period satire and silly costumes, but there was something very Martin about the shrewdly embedded commentary on the smug superiority every era feels about the previous era's scientific practices and customs. "Just 50 years ago, we would've thought that your daughter's illness was brought on by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach."

Original Airdate: October 29th, 1977

No matter how filthy the joke, there was always a sweet, childlike quality in Gilda Radner's comedy. Her Judy Miller character, a Girl Scout Brownie imagining her own TV show, captured the essence in a manic burst of energy. Legend has it that the first time she rehearsed the sketch (co-written by Judy's namesake, Marilyn Miller), Radner threw herself into it with such abandon that she injured a rib running into Judy's closet door. She had the rib taped up and insisted on keeping the sketch in the show – closet door run-ins and all.

Original Airdate: May 1st, 2004

In her autobiography, Rachel Dratch explained that her Debbie Downer character was inspired by a trip abroad: When she informed a stranger that she was from New York City, they replied, "So were you there for 9-11?" She and co-writer Paula Pell introduced the character in a Disney World sketch in 2004 – the first of seven appearances – and it was so funny that it induced some of the best character-breaking crack-ups in SNL history. Guest host Lindsay Lohan, who was 16, remembered laughing so many times in rehearsal that she was afraid of being fired. When the sketch went live, the line that broke everyone was, "It's official: I can't have children" – at which point, Horatio Sanz was literally wiping away tears with his Mickey Mouse waffle.

Original Airdate: September 14th, 2008

"This sketch easily could have been a dumb catfight between two female candidates," Tina Fey wrote in her book Bossypants. Instead, "you all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn't even realize it because of all the jokes. Suckers!" In the sketch, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton (Amy Poehler) take a bipartisan stand against campaign sexism. At the time, Palin's vice-presidential candidacy was a satirist's dream, and no one fulfilled it better than Fey. Two years gone from the SNL cast, Fey returned play her Republican doppelgänger in this Seth Meyers-penned sketch – ultimately NBC.com's most popular video ever. Fey reprised the role four times leading up to the 2008 election, delivering SNL its highest ratings since 1994 – and its most political relevance ever.

Original Airdate: October 6th, 1984

"It was funny before we put one word to paper," Martin Short told Roger Ebert. "I saw synchro swimming on TV – real synchro swimming – and I laughed out loud. It is the funniest sport in history." In 1984, Short and SCTV weren't really mainstream and This is Spinal Tap hadn't become a cult favorite yet, so this mini-mockumentary was Short, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest's biggest splash. Saying you're "not a strong swimmer" became a hip catchphrase as the skit set a new standard for the filmed SNL short. You can find DNA from this masterpiece in Guest's Waiting For Guffman (mincing director, check) and really, almost every parody streamed on Funny or Die. Fun fact: Also, off in his own corner of the writer's room that year? Larry David.

Original Airdate: April 17th, 1976

"To those on the 17th floor, the 'Bass-O-Matic' was so exhilaratingly strange that many remember sitting and listening, open-mouthed, when Danny [Aykroyd] presented it at the Monday writers' meeting," wrote Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad in A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. "Nobody felt jealous of it because they couldn't imagine writing anything remotely like it." According to producers and cast members, Dan Aykroyd was SNL's sharpest writer and performer at the time. At 23, he was also their youngest, a not ready for prime time Orson Welles. But he didn't come into his own until he parodied late-night pitchman Ron Popeil with this mutant of his Veg-O-Matic and the Pocket Fisherman. The sketch only lasts 90 seconds but it's enough time to blend a fresh bass into a bubbly pink smoothie. From then on, the gross-out sketch became a regular feature on SNL, stretching from the projectile vomiting Rookie Cops to the Kissing Family's on-air make-out sessions.

Original Airdate: December 11th, 1976

A morbid jewel of the Michael O'Donoghue era. Dan Aykroyd was great at playing slimeballs and mustachioed hucksters, and perhaps his greatest, sleaziest creation was crooked toy manufacturer Irwin Mainway (an in-joke reference to Irving Mainway convenience stores, popular in Aykroyd's native Canada). Mainway Toys seemed to make products not just with a disregard for children's safety but with the intent to harm, from the Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set to Bag O' Glass, with its charmingly direct warning label "Kid! Be careful, broken glass."

Original Airdate: November 18th, 1995

"My finest hour," is how Law & Order stoneface Sam Waterston once described his role as Old Glory Insurance's "compensated endorser." And in a recent Reddit AMA, writer Adam McKay (of Anchorman fame) put this skit at the very top of his top five pieces he penned at SNL. No surprise since the gag totally holds up today. Watch the ads airing on a certain cable news channel, and it's nearly the same approach (right down to featuring a Law & Order cast member) as the neo-con commercials that tell you to invest in gold, get a reverse mortgage, or buy your survival bunker today!

Original Airdate: October 27, 1990

The breakout sketch for one of SNL's most explosive masters of physical comedy was Chris Farley's shirtless dance-off with guest host Patrick Swayze, his rival for the last spot in a Chippendales show. "I'd say it was one of the funniest sketches in the history of the show," SNL writer Robert Smigel said in Farley's biography, The Chris Farley Show. "The way it was constructed, with everyone sincerely believing that this guy has a shot, and the judges studiously scribbling notes on his dance moves, that's what makes it original and completely hysterical." Not everyone in Farley's life agreed. "Chippendales was a weird sketch. I always hated it," said co-star Chris Rock. "The joke was basically, 'We can't hire you because you're fat'… It's just fucking mean. A more mentally together Chris Farley wouldn't have done it, but Chris wanted so much to be liked."

Original Airdate: December 13th, 1975

"It's like an H-bomb that Richard and I toss into America's consciousness." That's how comic and Pryor accomplice Paul Mooney describes writing the ballsiest race joke – possibly the ballsiest joke, period – that anyone had ever done on network TV. The audience laughs, not gasps, when Chevy and Pryor's black/white word association test peaks with: "Nigger?" "Dead honky." The whole week, Chevy had been begging to be in a skit with Pryor, while Mooney was fuming about assorted bullshit and questions from producer Lorne Michaels. So Mooney killed two birds by writing one skit. It could be the last time a white guy said the N-word on TV and actually diffused racial tensions rather than ignited them. Bonus points: At Pryor's insistence, Gil Scott-Heron was the musical guest that night.

Original Airdate: April 8th, 2000

America loved it, but for new cast member Jimmy Fallon this sketch was a revelation. "I had just started on the show and I'm not the best actor in the world," he said later. "I do impressions and stuff like that. So I was stuck in a scene with the great Will Ferrell, who's one of the funniest guys ever and we do the sketch in dress rehearsal and it's OK – it's not even that great. And then, on air… he came out with a smaller shirt so that his gut would hang out when he banged the cowbell. And everyone just broke up laughing, and I couldn't stop laughing. That's what you get when you play with the big boys." Though, yes, you got sick of the catch phrase, and the T-shirts and maybe even the whole idea of cowbells – and cows and bells. But the majesty of this lovingly ironic Seventies rock parody is pretty undeniable.

Original Airdate: December 15th, 1984

Eddie Murphy's whiteface sketch was the most provocative SNL moments since Richard Pryor dropped by in Season One. (In fact, it was an explicit homage to Pryor, who played the author of a book called White Like Me during his SNL appearance.) Murphy had recently become a movie star – "the first black actor to take charge in a white world onscreen," as he later told Rolling Stone – and was struggling to find his place among the Hollywood elite. "White Like Me" satirized his discomfort, showing the hidden opportunities afforded to white people when black guys leave the room. We wouldn't see such powerful, audacious comedy about American race relations until Chappelle's Show arrived, 20 years later.

Original Airdate: October 11th, 1986

Dana Carvey's first appearance on SNL, the season 11 opener, is still one of his most popular works. This sendup of rock-star burnout, in which Brit crooner Derek Stevens play the morose piano ballad "The Lady I Know" (or as SNL fans have come to call it, "Chopping Broccoli") dates back to Carvey's audition reel. In it, he called it his impression of a "very pretentious" rock star. "I think all of us at one time in our lives wanted to be a rock star," he said. "All you have to do is flare your nostrils and look like you're about to vomit. Everything you say is suddenly very important. It doesn't have to make any literal sense."

Original Airdate: October 21st, 2012

Of all the nightclub namedrops from twitchy NYC club kid Stefon (D-bag Chopra or Fat Sajak, anyone?) no one could have known that the anti-joke left hook of "Jewish vampire" Sidney Applebaum would get the biggest laugh. Not even Hader knew, since Mulaney subbed in this inside gag (it's a name of a Woody Allen character from Love and Death, by the way) without alerting his co-writer. "It's like a whole country watching John and I laugh at our sense of humor," Hader told the Daily Beast. We're glad they let us in on it.

Original Airdate: December 16th, 1978

A parody of the 60 Minutes "Point/Counterpoint" segments that ran throughout the Seventies, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd argued in the steely tone of televised debates, but with insults that thwarted decorum. "Jane, you ignorant slut" quickly become a pop-cultural catchphrase, but the invective seems downright tame when compared to the nastiness lobbed across cable and radio these days: Rush Limbaugh called a women's rights activist a "slut" as recently as 2012.

Original Airdate: May 11th, 1991

"It was terrifying," Mike Myers has said of kissing Madonna. And no wonder: In 1991, there was no more intimidating star than the just-banned-from-MTV Material Girl. Her fantasy rendezvous with Wayne and Garth was probably SNL's most perfect pop culture convergence ever: One of the most famous people on earth, writhing in the black-and-white world of "Justify My Love," the most controversial video of all time, speaking in the dopey slang ("No way!" "Way!") of the most popular recurring characters since the Blues Brothers. And we were only approaching Waynemania, which would peak in 1992 with their feature film. During shooting, Myers and Dana Carvey had a personal falling-out, and were never quite able to re-capture the magic – though that didn't stop Lorne Michaels from producing a sequel or doing the sketch seven more times.

Original Airdate: December 17th, 2006

"[W]e wrote this song in a delirium of no sleep on a Wednesday or Thursday of the week. We recorded it that night, and we were laughing so hysterically – and probably through the delirium of trying to write something so funny, this came out of it," Justin Timberlake told NPR about co-writing the most popular SNL Digital Short of all time (and possibly the best Timberlake song post-FutureSex/LoveSounds). Though co-star Andy Samberg says this R-rated, very-bleeped send-up of '90s R&B was written in two hours, it's shelf life is seemingly endless – a performance at Madison Square Garden, an Emmy for Outstanding Music and Lyrics, two follow-up sketches, and a stardom for Samberg that continues today. "[Lorne Michaels] says the thing you're known for will be in quotes in the middle of your name," he told Esquire He's Lorne 'SNL' Michaels, and I'm Andy 'Dick in a Box' Samberg. If that's how it goes down, that will be A-okay."

Original Airdate: October 10th, 1981

"I remember typing the first Buckwheat sketch and almost falling off my chair because it was so funny," recalled SNL production assistant Robin Shlien in the Live From New York oral history. Debuting in late 1981, "Buh-Weet Sings" was based on Eddie Murphy's memories of the Our Gang comedies. It eventually blossomed into this hilarious infomercial for an imagined album of pop standards ("untz, tice, fee times a nady"). Murphy's Buckwheat became so popular and long-running that the staff eventually got tired of the character and decided to dramatically knock Buckwheat off in the equally brilliant "Assassination of Buckwheat."

Original Airdate: May 8th, 1993

"It paints a picture; the phrase has a lot more meaning to it than just a catchphrase that stands alone," sketch writer Bob Odenkirk told the Chicago Reader about Matt Foley, the motivational speaker who's "35 years old, thrice divorced, and living in a van down by the river." "[T]here is a lot more to it when Chris did it, and he made that character whole. It's not a gimmick. You felt like there was a real person in that character."

Beyond Odenkirk's vivid storyline and Farley's honest portrayal, Foley was the single best use of the manic energy stored inside SNL's greatest physical comedian since John Belushi; a bundle of twitches, tics, throat-busting yells, and extreme pratfalls that made Chevy Chase look like Baryshnikov. Foley was invented by the pair in their days at Chicago's Second City, but quickly became a national legend since the folks on stage were laughing almost as hard as the audience. "Lorne didn't like us cracking up on air," said Norm MacDonald in The Chris Farley Show. "But it was always Chris's goal when it was live on air to make you laugh, to take you out of character, and he always succeeded. You could never not laugh."

The main victim in this sketch was David Spade: "In rehearsal, he's done the thing with his glasses… But he'd never done the twisting his belt and hitching up the pants thing," said Spade. "He saved that for the live performance, and so none of us had ever seen it. He knew that would break me."