Mediaite Presents: 35 Great SNL News Spoofs

Franco is Still Dead
Chevy Chase’s top story tonight, amplified for the hard of hearing: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Rachel Maddow Welcomes Burris and Blagojevich
Kenan Thompson’s run on the show has been largely disappointing (though his Cosby is strong), but here he comes through as an ambitious Roland Burris, assisted heavily by a comedically earnest Rachel Maddow. As for the saga of Governor Blagojevich? You can’t make this stuff up.

Jay Leno’s Evil Twin
Does guest star Jay Leno wearing a fake mustache and pretending to be his evil twin, Wade, count as an impression? Well, it should.
Dude has a weird obsession with evil twins; “Evil Jay” was a regular part of his show in the 90s, he voiced one on The Fairly Oddparents, and he recently cracked a joke about CSI “doing its premiere evil twin issue” when he was promoting his new show.

No video on this one; here’s the transcript, though.

Rush Limbaugh Zaps Michael Steele
Rushbo doesn’t actually show up onscreen in this Weekend Update, but he repeatedly gives Keenan Thompson’s GOP Chairman Michael Steele electric shocks when he doesn’t toe the party line. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Ben Affleck Channels Olbermann:
The real-life Keith Olbermann arguably veers into self-parody every now and then, especially when his fits of indignation cross the line into self-righteousness and that’s precisely why Ben Affleck’s impression is so satisfying. Watching Affleck put his actor ego to good use in playfully skewering the MSNBC host, nailing Olbermann’s trademark over-enunciation and quick-speak, along with the outrage, was one of the better surprises from SNL’s recent run.

Next: “Never mind,” Jay Leno’s evil twin, 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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