Saturday Night Live brings us a glimpse into a not-so-distant future, a future when Barack Obama‘s second term leads us into a nightmarish socialist dystopia. Luckily, Newt Gingrich‘s vision for a moon colony became a reality.

Earlier today, Gawker broke the news that Brian Williams thought Lana Del Rey had “one of the worst outings in SNL history” (not a huge news story but what do you expect on a national holiday?). How did they get this quote? Well, it turns out it was from a private email Williams sent to Gawker head honcho Nick Denton. Gawker posted Williams’ Del Rey critique along with some choice quotes about how often he checks the site’s “shit” on his iPad. Unsurprisingly, NBC PR wasn’t thrilled to see the message hit the front page.

Not since Ashlee Simpson performed the hoedown has an SNL performer botched a performance as bad as Lana Del Rey did as the show’s musical guest host last night.

Casey Anthony was back in the news this week, as a video diary was released that showed her sporting newly dyed blonde hair and in which she revealed that she was the owner of a Yorkshire terrier. Naturally, this raised some eyebrows. Casey’s dog appeared on “Weekend Update” to voice his concerns — or rather, Daniel Radcliffe bellied up to the desk in an insane wig, mustache and beard to complain about how being Anthony’s dog means he’s “living on a razor’s edge.”

Hogwarts in 2020 looks much the same as it did in the early aughts. The castle is unchanged, most of the professors are still there (Kristen Wiig played Professor MacGonagall and Bill Hader sported a vampiric black wig as Professor Snape), and Harry Potter is still hanging out on campus! Yes, the Boy Who Lived is in his twenties and desperate to relive his glory days, drinking beer and razzing the new students to the chagrin of everyone who knows him.

Ricky Gervais has been asked back to host the 2012 Golden Globes, and SNL gave us an idea of how that might go with Jason Sudeikis doing a serviceable Gervais impression. The usual jokes were made, with Gervais seeming more tickled his sense of humor than anyone else in the room. Certainly the celebrities at the Golden Globes could handle his truth bombs, but what might Ricky Gervais hosting the “Kids’ Choice Awards” look like? Hint: there would be jokes about Selena Gomez needing a green card.

Last week on “Saturday Night Live” we heard from surprise second place primary finisher Rick Santorum, and this week New Hampshire primary winner Mitt Romney kicked off the show with a personal message to voters from “Jim-Bob’s kitchen,” a diner in South Carolina.

Politics is a name game. It is about who you know– at least in the sense that knowing who the players are in this elaborate dance that defines how we govern ourselves as a nation is critical to successful analysis. And then there are anomalies like Tim Tebow, black holes of cable news time and energy that, through no fault of their own, become fault lines along our political geography.

Kristen Wiig and Paul Feig say they’ve been surprised at how last year’s comedy hit Bridesmaids has been received by some critics. They are pleased by the overall reception of their film, but wonder why so many people wrongly called it a “female comedy,” when it’s “a comedy with women in it,” as Wiig characterized it. No matter, the film, which is now getting some Oscar buzz, may have paved the way for similar projects to get greenlit in the future.

Remember a few weeks ago, when “Saturday Night Live” aired a presidential debate sketch where the candidates were seated according to their chances in the polls, and Rick Santorum was left to participate via satellite from a gay bar in the San Francisco’s Castro District? Oh, so very much has changed since then. This week’s episode began with an address from Rick Santorum himself, played by Andy Samberg (wearing Santorum’s now-signature sweater vest, of course).

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

This Saturday, as with any time an old star comes back to host, Saturday Night Live looked to its past. They recreated a couple of host Jimmy Fallon’s classic sketches and, since the season was right, they even brought back Horatio Sanz, Tracy Morgan, and Chris Kattan to perform “I Wish It Was Christmas Today,” the holiday hit they first did back in 2000. The goofy tune is actually one of the few Christmas songs not written 50 years ago to have had much staying power so its unsurprising that Fallon and Sanz have performed it a number of times in the past decade. We’ve collected all the different versions below.

We don’t usually get two View posts in a day here at Mediaite but, while that fart thing was just BREAKING NEWS THAT THE WORLD NEEDED TO SEE, there was also another interesting moment on the show. Saturday Night Live‘s Fred Armisen appeared to promote the second season of his IFC series Portlandia ( a series where that hilarious one-man show sketch probably would have been better appreciated) and Sherri Shepherd pointed out an issue that’s been a problem almost since SNL‘s inception (and possibly the actual solution to Greg Gutfeld’s conspiracy yesterday); Lorne Michaels needs to hire some more damn black people.

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live wrapped up their show with a sketch showing Jesus Christ appearing in the Denver Broncos locker room to tell Tim Tebow that he loves him but maybe the guy could “turn it down a notch.” Pat Robertson has already rushed to call the sketch “anti-Christian bigotry” so, when The Five opened today’s show teasing a segment on the situation, we knew someone was going to be outraged. Would it be Catholic Kimberly Guilfoyle? The (huge) Tebow fan Eric Bolling? Nope. The offended one was actually lone-liberal Bob Beckel who called the sketch “despicable.”

Televangelist Pat Robertson was incensed by Saturday Night Live‘s parody of Denver Bronco’s quarterback Tim Tebow on Monday morning, calling it an attack on Christianity. “There’s an anti-Christian bigotry that is just disgusting and I think Saturday Night Live did a parody of that, had Jesus come in,” Robertson fumed. “If this had been a Muslim country and they had done that, and had Muhammad doing that stuff, you would have found bombs being thrown off!”

Jimmy Fallon and Andy Samberg were in an odd little sketch a third of the way through the show, which opened with Fallon giving himself a pep talk backstage while taking a break from hosting the “Saturday Night Live” Christmas episode…see what they did there? Trés meta! Samberg showcased his best Fallon impression, and the pair also did a few impressions together — Jerry Seinfeld, Barry Gibb (which they cut short when one Fallon informed the other Fallon that co-host Justin Timberlake couldn’t make it), and Kermit the Frog among them.

It seems that Tim Tebow, the football person who really likes to talk about God, has finally made it– he’s getting his own sketch on Saturday Night Live tonight, if this AP report on the program is any indication. The report, on tonight’s program hosted by SNL alum Jimmy Fallon and hosting musical guest Michael Bublé, reports that the studio was being prepared for a sketch mocking the over-the-top religious displays of the famous player.

Recently, we’ve been getting a lot of absolute gold from behind the scenes at Saturday Night Live (Who wants to be the first smart ass in the audience to joke that it’s much better than what’s actually in the scenes? Seriously, it’s a hilarious joke, guys. Go for it). Following hot on the heels of the amazing Taran Killam/Robyn video from the writer’s room, we now get a glimpse of the show’s holiday card and it is…perfect.

Guys, I’m going to apologize on behalf of the site. Somehow we didn’t post the coolest video that appeared online this week, thus denying you its awesomeness since we know that Mediaite is the only site you go to (right? RIGHT?). The video in question is of Saturday Night Live‘s Taran Killam, in the SNL writers’ room at 4:30 am, doing a hilariously goofy recreation of the music video for Robyn’s wonderfully catchy “Call Your Girlfriend” (Robyn, of course, being this past week’s musical guest). Well, some YouTube genius has edited Killam’s video and the original Robyn video together which accomplishes two things; it allows viewers to see how perfect Killam’s imitation is and it allows we at Mediaite to redeem ourselves by posting all the awesomeness now.

Al Sharpton doesn’t stay up too late on Saturdays, since he has to go to church the next day. This Saturday, however, he did not miss Saturday Night Live‘s version of his own show– and found it hilarious. On his show tonight, he parodied the parody of himself, played clips of the sketch, and even offered advice for the actor portraying him, Kenan Thompson: “leave the blueberry pie alone.”

>Okay, allow me to level with everyone: I love the Time/Life sketches. This week featured a compilation of Thanksgiving-themed new jack swing hits curated by host “Medium Richard,” who was played by Bobby Moynihan. This holiday season we can all enjoy hits such as “Tryptophan Man” by girl group B.L.T. (“Wake the heeeell up!”), “Drippin’ Gravy” sung by Jay Pharoah’s Sweaty Keith and “Adult Table,” a sexually explicit R&B jam performed by Florence Welch in a stunning Day-Glo pleather suit.

Governor Jon Huntsman is not doing so great in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, so he was free tonight to actually appear on Saturday Night Live. It was really him!!! It’s well established that his daughters are quite media savvy and have a sense of humor, but this time Huntsman himself had the opportunity to show off his comedic chops on the show. He plied New Hampshire native Seth Meyers with compliments about his native state, like “you are as wise as a Dartmouth professor.”

Regis Philbin left his morning show after 28 years on Friday, and Saturday Night Live got busy replacing him the following night. Nasim Pedrad, playing Kelly Ripa, auditioned a slew of possible co-hosts, who ranged from Denzel Washington to Ashton Kutcher to Rosie O’Donnell.

As much as the media might want to pretend it isn’t true, Mitt Romney will probably be the inevitable winner of the Republican nomination for president. Unfortunately, however, his staid demeanor is not nearly as exciting as Herman Cain’s sexual harassment scandal or Rick Perry’s inability to remember government agencies. That’s where the “Committee To Elect Mitt Romney” comes in.

Who: Seth Meyers, John Mulaney, Marika Sawyer, Colin Jost, Erik Kenward, Bryan Tucker, Chris Kelly, moderated by Steve Gaydos
What: “Live from New York… A Discussion with the Saturday Night Live Writers”
Where: Paley Center for Media
When: November 13, 2011
Thumbs: Up