Mediaite Presents: 35 Great SNL News Spoofs

Emily Litella: “Never Mind”
Cable anchors are easy enough to spoof, but it takes talent to go after editorialists. Here’s the schtick: Gilda Radner’s grannyish Emily Litella writes a fiery column when she mishears something, but becomes a sweet old lady again when she’s corrected. “Why don’t parents want their children to see violins on television? Well, I thought the Leonard Bernstein concerts were just lovely.” “Oh, never mind.”

The O’Reilly Factless:
Besides occasionally matching O’Reilly’s intonation, Darrell Hammond’s take on Bill O is actually a bit of a miss as far as impressions go, but the overall gag — of a show completely devoid of facts — bears a painful resemblance to the Fox show at its worst. Plus, the idea that the same man plays both Bill Clinton and Bill O’Reilly on SNL is a cosmic joke of its own.

1990 Chris Rock and the Black Vice President

Special correspondent 1990 Chris Rock riffs on why there will never be a black vice president in this strange time capsule of a skit. It involves making people want to murder the president. Yikes.

Ann Coulter on “Weekend Update:”
Michaela Watkins pulls off an appropriately icy and self-satisfied Ann Coulter, defending the Bush administration’s legacy and “Christian-y” policies against all of the liberal media — mere mortals in Coulter’s eyes.

Queen Latifah Is Not Biased
SNL has been accused of being “in the tank” for Obama during the 2008 election, but Queen Latifah’s book-hawking Gwynne Ifill was an awesome touch to what could have been just another Tina Fey/Sarah Palin bit. “I will not ask any follow-up questions beyond ‘do you agree?’ or ‘your response?’ so as not to appear biased for Barack Obama in light of my new book ‘The Breakthrough: Politics of Race in the Age of Obama,’ coming out on Inauguration Day and available for preorder on Amazon.com.”

For the grand finale: Oprah’s favorite things, and a certain Alaskan governor gets interviewed