snl

When the SNL writers decided to craft a sketch mocking the boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, they had no idea that the “fight of the century” would turn out to be a huge bust that would leave sports fans enraged. This adds a level of meta-humor to an already funny sketch. In many ways, SNL’s very silly take on this fight is significantly more interesting than the real thing.

Vanessa Bayer’s Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy has been a regular character on SNL’s Weekend Update for quite some time now, so it was about time for us meet the family of everyone’s favorite awkward, overly prepared Jewish kid. Coinciding with the end of Passover, the show brought the great Billy Crystal onto the show as Jacob’s equally awkward father.

Coming off the major acclaim (and major awards buzz) for Birdman, Michael Keaton returns to host SNL for the third time in his long and varied career. Keaton possesses a great deal of comedic sensibility, and his hosting gig this weekend almost seems a bit tardy, given his recent career resurgence. Better late than never. How did Keaton fare back on the SNL stage? Read on for your weekly sketch rankings!

Since The Walking Dead just ended its fifth season and it’s still one of the biggest shows in the history of television, it makes sense that SNL would pause to talk about it. After all, what good is the “Weekend Update” segment if the anchors don’t occasionally stop to talk about what’s big in popular culture? And what good is SNL if it can’t get one of the most popular actors from The Walking Dead to stop by for a minute-long cameo?

Most of the time, the SNL opening monologue is a formality and a tradition, a road bump on the way to the actual good parts of an episode. It feels like something the guest host does because he has to, not because anyone on the writing staff actually had a good idea. And that’s why last night’s monologue was such a joyous surprise: it was not only the best monologue of the season, but the best sketch of the whole night.

It has been a regular joke for a few years now that any struggling franchise just needs to bring Dwayne Johnson into the fold if it wants to regain relevance, but thanks to SNL, we now know that he is very aware of the joke. While guest hosting the world’s most famous live sketch comedy show, Johnson devoted his entire monologue to crooning a song about how he’s “franchise viagra.”

It’s an SNL sketch premise so silly that it feels like it belongs in the early ’90s, not 2015. Taking place in the distant future, the scene asks us to believe that chickens have evolved to be more intelligent than humans and that a chicken could command a spaceship of human beings and, most importantly, that a crew member played by guest host Chris Hemsworth would fall in love with the chicken.

The SNL 40 show a few weeks back has got me binging on classic SNL. Luckily, Hulu has every episode! I saw this one today and had to share it with ya. This one's from 20 years ago. In the skit, Chris Farley plays 'Mike the cameraman' for Stuart Smalley’s ‘Daily Affirmations’...

Hey! That's us! A quick shot of the Portland skyline

It’s not every day that an actor of John Goodman’s caliber hosts ‘SNL,’ but whatever the odds, it’s not nearly as uncommon as him being joined by Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro for a holiday-themed sketch that sees the three silver screen icons re-imagined as tough-talking guys on the way to visit the baby Jesus. Yep, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …