Saturday Night Live

Say what you will about Saturday Night Live - that it's inconsistant, that it's not as funny as it used to be, that it's lame because everyone reads off cue cards - okay, you're probably right. But people have been saying that about the show since its inception, and you can't deny that when SNL brings the laughs, it brings them hard. Here are some of my favorite Christmas sketches spanning the entire history of the show.

First up, Dan Aykroyd plays sleazy toy manufacturer Irwin Mainway as he discusses his dangerous products with "Consumer Probe" host Candice Bergen. The child-friendly toys offered by Mainway toys include "Bag o' Glass", "Johnny Switchblade", and "Teddy Chainsaw Bear". My favorite part is towards the end, where he proves that all toys can be dangerous.



The "Golden Age" of SNL, at least as far as I'm concerned, was the late 80's/early 90's. This is a mostly forgotten Christmas sketch from that time, and it features a who's who of the comedy greats who made that era so legendary (and also Victoria Jackson).



Finally, there's this gem from recent SNL history. Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, and Tracey Morgan perform an insane Christmas song together - well, mostly just Sanz. Fallon half-assedly fiddles with a synthesizer that is held by Kattan while a stone-faced Morgan does a silly dance. I can only imagine how they pitched this to Lorne Michaels.




Honorable Mentions: Hanukkah Harry Saves Christmas and the gleefully uber-violent lost ending of It's a Wonderful Life.