The 10 Most Influential 'SNL' Sketches Ever

Live from New York...we have some opinions!

Saturday Night Live started out as a network sketch comedy show whose 11:35 pm timeslot reflected its scrappy, counter-culture sensibilities. Fifty years later, it is a juggernaut that defines American pop culture. From movies to television to the internet and even music (have you seen Questlove’s amazing documentary on the show’s musical performers?), SNL has spread its tentacles all over entertainment, launching careers and changing comedy along the way.

With the show marking its 50th anniversary this year (and an anniversary special scheduled for Feb. 16), we’re posing the following question: Of the thousands of sketches produced at Studio 8H over the past five decades, which ones proved most influential in defining the show’s legacy?

If there was ever a post that needed an IMHO (“in my humble opinion”) added to the headline, it’s this one! We are bringing equal parts personal bias and pop culture expertise to our choices, presented in chronological order.

“Lorne Michaels Asks the Beatles to Reunite on SNL” (1976)

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Saturday Night Live creator and mastermind Lorne Michaels rarely appears in sketches. But back when the show was in its infancy, Michaels’ solo appearance was the start of SNL transforming from a late-night comedy show to a pop culture institution.

The Beatles broke up in 1969, but rumors continued to swirl that the band planned to reunite throughout the following decade. Michaels cannily filmed a plea asking that if the Fab Four was truly going to reunite, then could they please do so at Studio 8H? But what made the joke memorable was that he showed a check made out to The Beatles for a mere $3,000. This turned into a runner in which Michaels upped the offer to $3,200, then crucially upped the bit even further when George Harrison turned up and asked for the check.

When this bit is discussed, it’s usually because Paul McCartney and John Lennon briefly entertained going onto the show, but never did, and the “what if” factor has become a major part of SNL lore.

But the other reason I single this skit out is that it represents how celebrities would come to see SNL as a chance to be in on the joke by playing themselves. McCartney and Lennon nearly showed up, and then Harrison actually did. His was one of the first surprise cameos on the show, paving the way for nearly every single A-list celeb to show up at Studio 8H one time or another. (May I refer you to this star-studded “Five Timers Club” sketch as the most recent example.)

After all this time, a big part of what makes SNL compelling television is that you never know which star will make a surprise cameo to bask in the audience’s delighted applause. And the power of Saturday Night Live is that if Lorne Michaels made an offer for The Beatles to reunite today—$3,000 check or not—if all four members were alive, odds are they would do it. — Kirthana Ramisetti

“The French Chef” (1978)

The first SNL sketch I can ever recall is this one, but that’s only a small part of why I think of it as consequential. In the pre-internet era, Aykroyd’s jolly, high-pitched impersonation quickly became synonymous with Julia Child, and it followed her for the rest of her life, including being referenced in her obituaries.

In fact, apart from her hit cooking shows and TV appearances throughout the latter-half of the twentieth century, the SNL skit is largely what defined Julia Child in popular culture, at least until Nora Ephron’s 2009 film Julie and Julia. It didn’t matter that Aykroyd doesn’t resemble Julia. He gets her personality right, then heightens it to maximum comic effect. And it proved to be a winning formula that SNL turned to again and again.

Of all the things SNL is known for—and that can impact pop culture, and even politics— a crucial element of the show’s success is that with the right alchemy of cast member and public figure, an SNL impression can come to define the person being parodied in the public consciousness.

Think Gilda Radner as Barbara Walters, Jan Hooks as Tammy Faye Bakker, Will Ferrell as George W. Bush, or Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. (For more on Fey/Palin, keep reading). “The French Chef” is one of the earliest examples of SNL shaping our perceptions of a celebrity.

And then there is the skit’s gross-out humor. Julia spouting copious amounts of blood after a kitchen accident represents the beginnings of an enduring SNL staple to this day. This blood-soaked Dead Poets Society parody that became a viral sensation can count the humble Julia Child sketch as its direct ancestor. —Kirthana Ramisetti

“White Like Me” (1984)

It’s hard to fully appreciate Eddie Murphy’s brilliance, much less his revolutionary qualities, from this distance of time. One thing we can say for sure: Dave Chappelle was his own kind of revolutionary, but it’s hard to imagine his work without Murphy’s coming first.

In 1984, Eddie Murphy set out to “actually experience America … as a white man.” You can hear the uncomfortable laughter in the live audience as the tape plays. It’s presented very straight, as if it could really be a news segment. Decades later, Chappelle would present the blind Black white supremacist as an implied sequel. And “White Like Me” could run again today and feel relevant.

To prepare to be a white man undercover, Murphy tells us, “I watched lots of Dynasty.” “See? See how they walk?” he says to a fellow Black man in the makeup room. “Their butts are real tight when they walk.” He was introducing a concept that wouldn’t sink into mainstream white culture for another few decades: the idea that “white culture” is its own entity, with its own ways that are just as strange to other groups as other groups’ can seem to what had long been implied was “regular” America—white America.

It would be the late 2010s before it felt as if SNL’s Black cast members and writers had their own voice on the show; “Black Jeopardy” was one of those watershed moments.

Watch that sketch and see if it doesn’t prove as a fairly clear explainer for the 2024 election results. And remember that it all began with a fearless Eddie Murphy. —Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

“Wayne’s World” (1989-94)

I am sure I will regret making this claim as soon as I say it, but has there ever been a better SNL duo than Mike Myers and Dana Carvey? Playing Wayne and Garth, suburban stoners with a local-access TV show, the sketches began as two Chicagoland teenage nebbishes unable to see their own reflections (maybe they would have appreciated their own wells for sensitive boys, coming a few years later?). Over time, and with the adulation of the early 90s SNL audience, it became the bulletproof success of the show in the era between Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell.

Revisiting “Wayne’s World” now, it is stunning to see just how many indelible catch phrases can be embedded in one sketch: “As if!,” “Schwing!,” “Party time, excellent!”, “Party on, Wayne!” When I was a kid, I would stay up late on Saturday nights in the hopes that Myers might appear, but on revisiting these sketches, I find myself laughing most at Carvey, the sidekick with an unquenchable appetite for life and the occasional inability to control that same enthusiasm. “I’m so excited I think I’m gonna hurl!” he tells the members of Aerosmith when they deign to appear on their show.

The truest legacy of “Wayne’s World” is both as proof positive of Saturday Night Live’s increasing embrace of recurring sketches and characters, providing a bit of a mattress under the tightrope walk of live sketch comedy, and also of Hollywood’s desire, in this long-bygone era in which film comedy was a big-bucks endeavor, to mine SNL for feature inspiration.

“Wayne’s World” was not the first Saturday Night Live sketch to become a feature film, but it led to what remains arguably the only SNL sketch-inspired film to be transformed into a good movie, and unquestionably the only one other than The Blues Brothers to become a box-office success. (We will not talk about Wayne’s World 2, which Myers recently acknowledged in an interview as a rush job that he was pressured into making.) Party on, Garth! —Saul Austerlitz

“Van Down by The River” (1993)

Humblebrag: I was born in the 1980s and, growing up, my parents allowed me to sit with them and watch shows that nowadays might be considered highly inappropriate for young children to watch. But my parents weren't helicopter authoritarians — they were cool. On Saturday nights, my brother and I stayed up past our bedtime to see one SNL comedian in particular: The late Chris Farley, who debuted on the show in 1990 for a brilliant, six-season stretch. One of his most popular characters was Matt Foley, a motivational speaker who is oddly, hilariously belligerent and extremely bad at his job.

As his alter ego, Farley's colossal gift for physical comedy was on full display — never more so than in "Van Down by the River," where David Spade and Christina Applegate struggled not to break character. Could you blame them? Their reaction to his performance had the effect of normalizing the instances when SNL stars drop their guards and laugh as themselves, not their characters. (Jimmy Fallon did this A LOT. See: “The Love-ahs with Barbara and Dave.”) Some improv purists find this behavior unprofessional, but I happen to love it. When you can make your co-star spontaneously combust with laughter, well, that's proof that your sketch killed. —Erin Carlson

“Dick in a Box” (2006)

Recently, I was hanging out with my in-laws — two very modest humans in their 70s — when the song “Dick in a Box” came up in conversation. I'm not sure how that happened! But I learned that they know all about Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg's viral serenade and they love it. “Dick in a Box” transcends generations and endures as a spiritual grandfather to the wacky, referential videos released today on TikTok, seemingly every millisecond.

One day in December 2006, Lorne Michaels asked Samberg and his SNL co-writers Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone to create a musical sketch for Timberlake, who was slated to host the show that month. The trio conceived a parody of cheesy boy-band songs such as “I Wanna Sex You Up” before sending the material to Timberlake, a former boy-bander breaking with his Teen Beat past. The singer fully embraced “Dick in a Box” and filmed the faux music video in a day and a half with Samberg, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig. Afterward, the FCC intervened and told them that they couldn't say “dick” on live television. The digital eventually aired with the word being bleeped out 16 times.

“The irony of that,” Timberlake said later, “is that bleeped-out version I think is the funnier version.” —Erin Carlson

“A Nonpartisan Message from Governor Sarah Palin & Senator Hillary Clinton” (2008)

SNL has long specialized in political parodies, almost as if they are an institutional duty, and certainly they have varied widely in quality. But Tina Fey returning to the show, after she’d left for her sitcom 30 Rock, to play 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin marks the indisputable apex of the form. For starters, the casting took its cues from the public; the immediate reaction to Republican candidate John McCain naming her as his running mate included a lefty freak out that she was TV-pretty and looked just like Fey.

In future election cycles, the show would increasingly turn to stunt-casting to play major candidates, and that’s largely because of the success of Fey’s Palin. However, none of these impressions would have the impact of Fey’s, which served to largely define Palin as a dimwit who made great TV but couldn’t possibly be trusted to step in if something happened to McCain.

Fey’s first sketch as the candidate imagines her and vanquished Democratic primary hopeful Hillary Clinton, played by (a quite pregnant) Amy Poehler, delivering a joint address to the American public decrying, as Fey’s Palin says, “the very ugly role sexism is playing in the campaign.” Poehler as Clinton adds, “an issue which I am frankly surprised to hear people suddenly care about.” They ping-pong back and forth, drawing out the contrasts between the less-competent woman still in the race and the hyper-competent woman who is not. “I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy,” Clinton says. “And I can see Russia from my house,” Palin says, her Alaskan accent at maximum.

Forevermore, no one would be sure if Palin ever said this or not. (She didn’t.)

“I didn’t want a woman to be president,” Clinton says. “I wanted to be president.” As Clinton continues with her rant, Palin loses interest and begins flirting with the crowd. She waves, strikes sexy poses, and cocks an imaginary rifle. “You just glided in on a dogsled,” Clinton says, “wearing your pageant sash and your Tina Fey glasses.”

The narrative was immediately reversed, and no one knew the difference anymore between Fey and Palin. And America elected its first Black president, Barack Obama. —Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Anything by YRGIRLS (2013-2017)

Can we show some love for the SNL era of YRGIRLS, featuring Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, Sasheer Zamata, Noël Wells, Vanessa Bayer, Nasim Pedrad, Leslie Jones and, of course, Lil' Baby Aidy? This is my personal Saturday Night Live Roman Empire — all the women of the show coming together to shoot music videos like (Do It On My) Twin Bed and Back Home Ballers. This particular cast was so damn magnetic to watch and there was a joy in seeing them band together for these raunchy, hilarious, nostalgic sketches. Please also see First Got Horny 2 U.

It’s a reminder that SNL has been a launching pad for several cadres of hilarious, ridiculously talented women — starting with the powerhouse trifecta of Cheri Oteri, Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon in the early 90s, all the way to current cast members Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman. —Thea Glassman

“Wells for Boys” (2017)

Saturday Night Live has long specialized in advertisements for imaginary and ludicrous products. (Does anyone remember Schmitt’s Gay beer?) But it takes the unicorn mind of Julio Torres, now best known for remarkable series like Los Espookys and specials like My Favorite Shapes, to come up with 2016’s “Wells for Boys” (cowritten with Jeremy Beiler).

Taking the shape and form of the kind of Fisher-Price advertisements that would appear during commercials breaks for He-Man or She-Ra during Gen X childhoods, “Wells” features a dreamy, moody boy for whom a Nerf football or Lego set is just not going to be the thing. “Introducing wells for sensitive little boys,” the announcer intones as the camera pulls up to what feels like a distinctly dinky plastic well posed next to a grand piano in a living room. (Whichever production designer was responsible for crafting this well deserves a lifetime-achievement award.)

The sensitive little boy here runs his finger along the well’s edges; he whispers a secret into its watery depths; he gazes longingly into its vastness. Mistaking comedy for autobiography is a loser’s game, but it is hard not to wonder whether we are watching a one minute- and 45-second autobiography of Julio Torres here, all of his defiant oddness on display in this putative commercial. “He’ll grow up to have a wildly passionate and successful creative life,” the narrator says, “but not just yet.” (The idea of a button on the well that played Philip Glass was raised, but didn’t make the final cut of the sketch.)

Emma Stone plays his understanding mother and Bobby Moynihan his clueless father. Stone makes a meal of ripping into a clueless friend of her son’s, yelling at him, “You have everything. Everything is for you. And this one thing is for him!”

“Some kids like to play; others just…sort of wait for adulthood,” the announcer hesitantly declares, as our boy extends his index finger to disturb his reflection in the well’s water, as if not quite ready to take in his own visage.

Don’t get me wrong: the Lonely Island are geniuses. But maybe the person who took SNL’s comedy videos the furthest was actually Julio Torres? Maybe we should buy Fisher-Price wells for all our sons. —Saul Austerlitz

“Welcome to Hell” (2017)

In light of the #MeToo movement, Saturday Night Live released a music video featuring guest host Saoirse Ronan and the women of SNL performing a number called "Welcome to Hell." As one headline after another shed new light on the horrific sexual abuse and harassment inflicted by the likes of people like Harvey Weinstein, this was, in my estimation, the perfect response. Here are the opening lyrics:

Cecily Strong: Hey there, boys. We know the last couple months have been frickin' insane...

Aidy Bryant: All these big, cool, powerful guys are turning out to be, what's the word? Habitual predators?

Kate McKinnon: Cat's out of the bag, women get harassed all the time!

Aidy: And it's, like, dang, is this the world now?

Saoirse Ronan: But here's a little secret that every girl knows...

Cecily: Oh, this been the damn world!

“Welcome to Hell” breaks down the kind of fear and pain women can deal with on a daily basis, all set to a wildly catchy anthem. It's a glossy, witty music video with a message that stands the test of time. Yet again, we’re reminded of SNL’s ability to meet the moment with shrewd commentary and deft humor. —Thea Glassman

📢 NOW TELL US: What did we get right? What should we have included instead? Sound off and let us know in the comments!

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Ministry Book Corner 📚

Here at MOPC, not only are we pop culture writers, we’re also authors! Every Monday, we’re going to recommend each other’s work. And if you’d like to check out all of our books, visit our bookstore at Bookshop.org.

Kirthana recommends…Jennifer’s So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (And Why We're Still So Obsessed with It)

Named one of the Best Comedy Books of 2024 by Vulture, So Fetch follows the improbable story of how Tina Fey turned a nonfiction self-help book into a teen comedy, then adapted it into a Broadway musical, and finally remade into a movie musical. (Therefore, Jennifer writing a nonfiction book about Mean Girls is definitely full circle!) Besides offering plenty of enjoyable insights into the making of the hit 2004 film, So Fetch smartly examines why this movie has been embraced by generations, spawned numerous memes and imitators, and continues to endure in pop culture to this day.