Best of SNL

A look back at some of the great Saturday Night Live skits and actors before the "Dick in a Box" era. (Or, How I'm procrastinating re-writing my novel, working title "Third Times a Charm.")

We have all come to love the comedy stylings of Andy Samberg and Seth Meyers, and we loved the years of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Kristin Wiig, and Jimmy Fallon.  I can go back and watch any of the combination of these actors do Weekend Update, and recently watched all the clips I could find of Bronx Beat.  

 But before all of this, we had Adam Sandler (back when he was funny) and Dana Carvey (the Church Lady) and Mike Meyers (Coffee Talk) and Chris Rock (around when he was voted the Funniest Man Alive) and Chris Farley (RIP) and Will Ferrell (Jeopardy has never been the same).  The 90s had some superstars of comedy that we don't think about very much now, but I feel like they need some credit.  

There have been many terrible movies made out of SNL skits (Night at the Roxbury stands out as well as Superstar), but Wayne's World is a time capsule of the early 90s, complete with Claudia Schiffer references, a car trip to see Alice Cooper in concert, in which the famous Bohemian Rhapsody sing along takes place, and of course, the bad guy being a greasy hairs yuppie in a suit who wants them to sell out.  

And of course in addition to being the sidekick to Mike Meyer's Wayne, Dana Carvey had a number of other great performances, from the Church Lady, "well isn't that special," to his uncanny impression of George Bush Sr. (until Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, there hasn't been a better political impersonation on the show) to his Choppin' Broccoli song.  

Just about the time that Adam Sandler made his classic Billy Madison, he was on SNL singing the Chanukah Song.  I have to admit, I was never a big fan of the Chris Farley and David Spade combo that went on to create such masterpieces of irritation as Dumb and Dumber and Tommy Boy.  But I did enjoy Chris Farley's audition against Patrick Swayze for Chippendales.  

And of course let's not forget, Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy (so proud to say that the original book of Deep Thoughts was published by Berkley in 1992).  These are classics, and the website gives you a Deep Thought of the day.  One of my favorites is, "If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone."

I also enjoy the story of Uncle Caveman, “When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.”

I have no idea why I'm reminiscing about old SNL skits except that they are mostly free to watch on Hula when new seasons of TV shows haven't started yet and most of what I want to watch on there is for Hula Plus members.  Fascists.