Mediaite Presents: 35 Great SNL News Spoofs

Jane, You Ignorant Slut
Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd (later, Bill Murray) gleefully exposed the passive-aggressive relationship between some news anchors, starting each segment with ‘hot issues’ and eventually exploding into personal, sexual attacks. It’s still way more civil than Crossfire.

Kristen Wiig Does Suze Orman
It’s a Kristen Wiig production, so you know it’s gotta be good. It’s absolutely worth waiting to the end to get a zebra-clad Orman’s “few money-saving tips just for the ladies,” which involve baby socks and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!,” among other tools of frugality.

Wolf Blitzer on “Celebrity Jeopardy”
In this slightly outlandish “Celebrity Jeopardy” skit, Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer gets demolished by comedian Andy Richter, ending up with a score of -$4600. Blitzer is played by — wait, this is real?

Wolf Blitzer: ANNA ANNA ANNA ANNA
OK, this is an actual SNL skit featuring Blitzer. as Wolf tries to cover ‘hard’ news, like the situation at Walter Reed, the ticker obsesses over the death of Anna Nicole Smith until it’s just playing ANNA! ANNA! ANNA!
The actual skit has been taken offline due to a terms of service violation, but here’s a clip of real Blitzer commenting on a clip of fake Blitzer as the real ticker blasts Anna Nicole Smith coverage… (head explodes).

Harry Caray’s “Space: The Infinite Frontier”
Before he Ron Burgundied it up, Will Ferrell played another eccentric, catchphrase-spouting anchor. This truly weird series of skits continued even after the death of Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray. Marvel as planets whirr in the background and Ferrell asks scientist Jeff Goldblum (is Jeff Goldblum ever not a scientist?): “If the moon were made of barbecue spare ribs, would you eat it then?”

Next: Chris Farley, “So what? Who cares?” and more

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9 comments

Magister says:

September 24, 2009 at 11:51 am

This looks like a good collection with lots of entertainment potential, but it might be better titled “35 Great SNL Spoofs Available Online” because just off the top of my head, Gilda’s “Emily Litella”; The “Al Franken Decade’”; Al Franken as one-person, self-contained reporting unit and Weekend Update’s memorable Three Mile Island coverage are overlooked.

Still, a good post with lots of entertainment value. It’s just that if you’ve watched SNL for thirty-five years, you can think of things better than some of those listed above.

Magister says:

September 24, 2009 at 11:54 am

Oh, and let me add A. Whitney Brown’s “The Big Picture” to my little list.

Robert Quigley says:

September 24, 2009 at 12:03 pm

@Magister: Emily Litella’s there, just on page six! Had to give some incentive to keep reading…

Good calls on Three Mile Island and A. Whitney Brown though. I also looked everywhere for John Belushi’s weatherman skit, but to no avail.

MarkEdwards says:

September 24, 2009 at 12:58 pm

Completely.

Freaking.

Brilliant.

Thanxxxxxxxxxxxx for the laughs!

CRZ says:

September 24, 2009 at 5:17 pm

Sorry, I’m too lazy to read more than one page.

Were you worried you were going to run out of Internet if you didn’t break it up into seven pages? I hate when websites do that. SHAME!

Magister says:

September 25, 2009 at 4:03 am

@Robert Quigley: Sorry about that. I must’ve inadvertently skipped page six, but thanks for pointing it out because not only do you have her, but you also have a couple of really good ones on that page.

Good post.

Kevin Gotkin says:

September 25, 2009 at 6:58 pm

This is such a great piece! But I must be annoying and write a totally distracting comment: each and every one of the videos won’t load because of “international copyright restrictions” (I’m in France)! Imagine me all ready to laugh and giggle to myself here in Paris and suddenly I’m robbed (of course, your words are almost as good, Mr. Quigley!). Seroiusly, WTF.

Robert Quigley says:

September 26, 2009 at 12:23 am

@Kevin: Drat! ‘Hulu?’ More like, ‘vermoulu.’

Aaron Guzman says:

September 29, 2009 at 8:17 pm

I am truly shocked that there was not a single mention of the “Assassination of Buckwheat.” No, honestly, I am shocked. For those too young to have seen it, when Eddie Murphy was on SNL during the early 80’s one of his recurring characters was an adult version of the Little Rascals’ ‘Buckwheat.’ During one episode, everything started normally but about 10 minutes into the show Weekend Update broke in with a special report about Buckwheat being shot while leaving a theater after a performance. The rest of the entire episode was a parody of the news reporting on the tragedy reminiscent of the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, including constantly replaying the footage of Buckwheat being shot (in slow motion), corporate sponsorships of the special report (“The Death of Buckwheat: brought to you by …”) and the assassin’s high school yearbook photo where he was voted “Most Likely to Kill Buckwheat.” An article about the greatest SNL news parodies that lacks this masterpiece is an article written by someone who didn’t do much research on the subject.

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