Christmastime is a time filled with traditions, from the giving of presents to family and friends gathering together for big meals to festive lights and decorations. Of course, for Saturday Night Live the holiday tradition is to make fun of the holiday traditions. So here is a survey of some of the best Christmas-themed sketches from across a number of the different eras of the show.
Consumer Probe (Season 2, Episode 10)
Some of the best characters that Dan Aykroyd would play were pitchmen and skeevy hustlers. For his role as Irwin Mainway, owner of Mainway Toys, he combines both as the CEO comes under the interrogation of guest host Candace Bergen for producing dangerous children’s toys. While she calls him a “ruthless profiteer,” he maintains he is just packaging what kids want. And really, what kid wouldn’t want to find a Mr. Skingrafter kit or a Bog of Glass under the tree Christmas morning.
Mr Robinson’s Neighborhood Christmas (Season 10, Episode 9)
Times are tough in Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood, especially around Christmas time. But Mr. Robinson is sure upbeat, showing the boys and girls how to start up a small business, how much he has in common with Santa Clause and how to make a Cabbage Patch Doll. The episode featuring this sketch would be Murphy’s farewell, with him not returning for a regular episode for thirty-five years when he came back to host an episode in season 45. (See below.)
Steve Martin’s Holiday Wish (Season 12, Episode 6)
The holiday season is a time for wishing good will to all, and that is what guest host Steve Martin starts out doing with this 1986 holiday classic. Of course, since it’s Steve Martin, things go quickly off the rails in terms of things he would like for Christmas. This piece would be considered such a classic that show would re-air it, compete with a new introduction from Martin, twenty-tree years later.
It’s A Wonderful Life: The Lost Ending (Season 12, Episode 8)
Doing their own warped take on popular television shows and films has been a staple of SNL for virtually its entire existence, but this sketch featuring Dana Carvey in a standout performance as a pissed off George Bailey, is one of the best. Picking up on a plot thread left dangling at the end of the actual film, this sketch sees Uncle Billy (Phil Hartman) piece together that the missing $8,000 was indeed stolen my the evil Mr. Gower (Jon Lovitz), inciting George to lead an angry mob to extract revenge. “You just made one mistake, you left me alive,” he shouts before administrating a hilarious ass whopping.
The Global Warming Christmas Special (Season 16, Episode 8)
Carl Sagan (Mike Myers) is joined by Dean Martin (episode guest host Tom Hanks), Sally Struthers (Victoria Jackson) and a host of other celebrities on a tour of the stunted Christmas trees and liquefied peanut brittle caused by the rising temperature of the Earth. The macabre juxtapositioning of ecological catastrophe and a light and frothy holiday special make this sketch a delightful, with sometimes dark, piece. Unfortunately, this sketch isn’t available in the official Saturday Night Live online outlets, most likely due to the use of a couple of bars of “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime,” played as Hanks’s Dean-o makes his entrance.
NPR’s Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls (Season 24, Episode 9)
“The Delicious Dish,” featuring Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon as the laconic hosts of a public radio show about cooking, had been giong for two season and eight previous installments before it struck comedy gold in 1998. Guest host Alec Baldwin drops by as Pete Schweddy, the owner of the bakery Seasons Eatings, who wants to talk about his special holiday balls. Although he claims these are treats like popcorn balls, cheese balls and rum balls, the ensuing conversation implies something far more specific. To be fair, this is really just a one joke sketch, and not so much double entendre but single entendre. But man do Gasteyer, Shannon and Baldwin suck every bit of juice out of it. (See what we did there?) Somehow, though, the sketch seems to transcend its sophomoric premise to a year-round classic status. People can’t just get enough of Schweddy’s Balls.
Christmastime For The Jews (Season 31, Episode 9)
Without a doubt, this is the singular greatest Christmas holiday bit that the show has ever produced. This “TV’s Funhouse” segment from Robert Smiegel sports a solid joke writing and stop motion animation reminiscent of the classic Rankin and Bass holiday specials in support of a song that recreates Phil Spector’s famous Wall of Sound production style and an absolute banging vocal performance from the one and only Darlene Love. The result is a clip where revisiting has become a favorite holiday tradition.
Dick In A Box (Season 32, Episode 9)
Fellas, looking to surprise that someone special in your life with a holiday gift that no one else can give them? Well, the Lonely Island boys, joined with Justin Timberlake, have a suggestion. See, first you cut a hole in a box… Although The Lonely Island – Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer – had scored a few hits in their previous season at SNL, it was “Dick In A Box,” that really broke big for them and the show. The uncensored version of the song – NBC wanted the word “dick” bleeped for conventional over-the-air broadcast – amassed millions of views after it was posted to YouTube, effectively showing that the show had an audience that existed in more than just the traditional broadcast space.
Jebiediah Atkinson On Holiday Movies (Season 39, Episode 8)
Sarcastic 1860s newspaper critic Jebidiah Atkinson (Taran Killam) stops by the Weekend Update desk to review some classic holiday specials. Of course, it should be surprise that he calls A Charlie Brown Christmas a “30 minute Zoloft commercial” and that The Grinch Who Stole Christmas also stole “thirty minutes of my life.” Killam’s Jebidiah Atkinson was a great joke machine of a character and in this his second appearance, he was already firing on all cylinders. It’s a shame we didn’t get more from him. Next!
(Do It On My) Twin Bed (Season 39, Episode 10)
If you ever accompanied your significant other to their family for the holidays while in college or your 20s and you might have found yourself in their old, childhood bedroom. And, yeah, it can get a bit… awkward… if the two of you are looking for a little adult fun time together. Written by cast members Kate [McKinnon] and Aidy Bryant along with staff writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, “Twin Bed” features all the ladies of season 39’s cast in a Pussycat Dolls-like music video immortalized this particular moment in life so many of us have found ourselves in.
Holiday Baking Championship (Season 45, Episode 10)
Freshly baked cakes and pastries are always a welcome addition to any holiday gathering, so it makes sense that they would feature as the theme for a baking contest show like The Great British Bake-off. But what if something were to go horribly wrong, like the contestant bakers weren’t that good, or they accidentally brought to life some kind of deformed confectionery demon? The result is so hilariously horrifying that guest host Eddie Murphy lets loose with an on-air F-bomb – joining a proud legacy of on air F-bombers – which NBC muted for the YouTube video.
A Christmas Carol (Season 48, Episode 8)
Perhaps the oldest and most beloved secular holiday story is Charles Dickens’s immortal classic A Christmas Carol. Whose heart doesn’t swell as Ebenezer Scrooge awakens on Christmas morn with the realization that it’s not too late to change his ways before throwing open his bedroom window and tossing a few coins down to a street urchin to go buy a goose that he can take to his employee Bob Cratchitt’s home? But what if Scrooge (or in this case Martin Short) has some bad aim when it comes to throwing those coins down to the Victorian-era Londoners? Absolute hilarious havoc of course.
