Top 20 ‘SNL’ Sketches Of Season 41

Running last October, when this never-ending presidential race was first getting off the ground and still had a full busload’s worth of candidates, Abilify parodies drug ads to comment on the ludicrousness of certain politician’s presidential aspirations.

The ad opens on Cecily Strong, in a smart suit and blond wig with soft piano music playing in the background, saying, “Mental illness doesn’t run in our family. So I never thought it could happen to someone I loved. But then my husband started getting confused. He’d say things that just didn’t make any sense. Things like…”

Cut to: Taran Killam in a suit, red tie, perfectly coiffed hair. “I. Rick Santorum, will be president of the United States.”

“And he believed this,” Strong continued. “That’s when I knew – he had dementia.”

The ad repeated the premise for Mike Huckabee, taking on his defense of Kim Davis, and Jim Gilmore, a former governor of Virginia who, rumor has it, was part of the current presidential race at one point.

The sketch takes a harsh shot at nonsensical aspirants, with Kate McKinnon, as Huckabee’s wife, responding to his run by saying, “It’s as if he didn’t know what year it is, or how the world worked.”

Abilify – for people who think they can be president – destroys the part of the brain causing this, leading to “an immediate return to reality,” and a funny shot of Killam, as Santorum, coming-to while on stage at a rally. It’s also “the only dementia medication prescribed for 11 specific people.”

One bittersweet line toward the end features Moynihan, as Huckabee, saying, “One time during a debate I cut Donald Trump off and said, ‘No, you listen!’ What was I thinking? That’s our future president.”

Admittedly, the line was funnier then.

Nespresso gave us one of the stranger commercials of the year, with the ad where George Clooney puts Danny DeVito through a mysterious set of rituals just for a cup of coffee.

With Bobby Moynihan as DeVito and Taran Killam as Clooney, the ad parody focused on the obvious question the ad posed – exactly what in the hell is going on here?

Mimicking the weirdness of the original with some additional surreal touches, DeVito approaches Clooney (as in the real ad) and says, “I want in,” to which Clooney replies, “Are you ready?” Here, DeVito breaks from the ad to ask, “For what? I just want a cup of coffee,” and the ad keeps getting stranger as DeVito puts himself though Clooney’s machinations, despite having no idea what he’s doing or why.

The parody is a showcase for Moynihan, who, as the increasingly annoyed DeVito, cannot comprehend how getting fitted for a suit and eating numerous meals helps prepare him for a simple cup of coffee. By the time they eat sushi, DeVito’s third meal of the day, he’s on the verge of a breakdown.

As the ad progresses, DeVito gets increasingly meta, asking Clooney, “How do we know each other? Were we in Batman together. No, right? Mine was Keaton. So why me and you?”

By the time he’s finally ready for coffee, he’s calling his wife to express concern for Clooney’s mental health. Moynihan is a joy in this, and shows that his Danny DeVito is a character worth repeating.

This commercial parody, for a dating app called Settl, expresses the “there are no good guys left” frustration many women out of their 20s feel in the dating scene, by modifying familiar features on the dating apps we all know and, most likely, do not love.  

As Sasheer Zamata says, “There’s nothing wrong with the men on Settl. They’re just normal guys with characteristics I’m now willing to overlook.”

Vanessa Bayer met her mate on Settl, and introduces Henry (Taran Killam) by saying, “He may drive a smart car, but he’s a manager at PetCo, and even has a 401K. We’re getting married in April, which is before my sister.”

Among the app’s features: men can only upload passport photos or pictures of them holding the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so you can’t focus on their looks. Also, you’re guaranteed a date, because Settl doesn’t allow you to swipe left.

Leslie Jones nails it at the end, while on a date with Kyle Mooney. After asking Mooney if he’d like more wine, he explains that he shouldn’t, because he’s “usually in bed by now.” The look on Jones’ face, which ends the ad, encapsulates the frustration of millions of single women.

This sketch got one of the best responses of the season from fans online, which will make some wonder why I ranked it so far down on the list.

Truth is, I debated putting it here at all.

This sketch starred Kate McKinnon in what was considered a tour de force performance, and Ryan Gosling and the rest of the sketch’s cast in a supporting role as actors who could not hold it together as McKinnon did her thing.

For those who missed it – McKinnon, Strong, and Gosling played three friends who were captured and briefly held by a UFO. As they recount their experiences to government officials, played by Aidy Bryant and Bobby Moynihan, Strong and Gosling had magical, awestruck memories, while McKinnon was treated like garbage, including having her “knockers” lightly batted around for no reason.

On paper and through McKinnon’s performance, this sketch is a winner, hands down. The escalating scenarios the writers created were imaginative and perfectly calibrated. While Strong and Gosling were bathed in “beautiful calming light,” McKinnon had to pee in a steel bowl as 40 gray, ugly aliens watched. Later, her pants gone, she describes “full Porky Piggin’ it in a drafty dome.” Strong saw the “furnace of all creation, what we would call God,” while McKinnon gets the batted-knocker treatment, which felt “super off the books.”

Thing is, the sketch was so strong out of the box, I’m not certain the breaking made it better. Bryant and Gosling lost it almost at the outset; Moynihan joined them halfway through. McKinnon and Strong held it together pretty well in general, but you could see them fighting to hold it in.

I would like to have seen a version of this where they all held it together, but I know the entire Internet disagrees with me on this, so…C’est la vie.

This was one of the show’s more controversial sketches this season, and given the deadly opiate epidemic overtaking our country, it’s understandable why.

This opens with suburban types – Kate McKinnon given her kids lunch, Beck Bennett and a mini-van – evoking typical commercial platitudes: “I’m a mom, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have fun,” etc.

Then, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, looking more soccer mom than ever, says, “I wanna use heroin, but I also wanna get stuff done. That’s why I reach for Heroin AM, the only non-drowsy heroin on the market. So I can get jacked on scag, and then get to work.”

The commercial is somewhat predictable from here. We see soccer couch Bennett passed out on the field, suburban mom McKinnon freaked out and playing with her toes, and Louis-Dreyfus watching mysterious monsters as her family looked on. We also learned that Heroin AM comes in gummy bear form – which you can then melt down in a spoon and inject.

At the end, we see Louis-Dreyfus behind the wheel of a car, saying, “I went from nodding off, to nodding yes to more heroin.” The camera then pans back to watch her say, “now who’s ready for school,” as we see that she’s a school bus driver.

Some on the internet felt the sketch was mocking drug users, which would be insensitive in light of the current epidemic. I didn’t see it that way. The epidemic is widespread, and it’s hitting suburbia, but because it’s tied into the legal drug industry – with prescription opiates often getting people initially hooked – there’s an argument that it’s not being taken as seriously as it should.

“Heroin AM” hit back at the notion of a stereotypical drug addict, aiming to say that if you think you’re above this, that someone like you can’t fall into this, then you’re wrong. (For a reminder of how widespread dismissive attitudes abut this epidemic are, recall Gene Simmons’ recent remarks about the death of Prince.) It was a risky and bold sketch, and I’m glad they did it.

This sketch dared to take their often predictable political satire in a wildly different direction.

It starts with a table of New Yorkers discussing how, while Hillary has everything they want in a president, they’re switching allegiance to Bernie. Then, from out of the corner, a piano plays. Camera turns, and we see Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton, elevated on a swing decorated with flowers, singing Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

The sketch could be a seen as a knock on Hillary for failing to capture the public excitement despite the best possible resume for the job, or on Bernie supporters for shunning the candidate the show felt has the best possible resume for the job.

But it also reflects what must have been a very real conundrum within Clinton herself, the feeling of what more do I have to do, beyond being a Senator and Secretary of State, to make people see that I can do this job.

McKinnon – who, no surprise, can consider singing among her many talents – turns this into a performance art piece of sorts, having Hillary dance (unseen by the New Yorkers) in avant garde and occasionally sensual fashion, a combination of an impassioned plea and a devil-may-care resignation to the strange direction the election was taking.

The sketch then takes wicked shot at Jeb Bush, who rises from a table to sing the same song, only to find, unlike Hillary, that the restaurant patrons can see him. They ask what the hell he’s doing – yet another clueless move by our most sad sack candidate – and after they explain that he shouldn’t compare himself to Hillary, who’s still doing well, she reappears. This time, the Bonnie Raitt song is out, she’s wielding an guitar, and it’s “Back in Black” time as McKinnon, victorious, yells, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”

Shout out here to Beck Bennett, who wasn’t the most prominent cast member this season, but occasionally came in with a winner, as these two commercials parodies suggest.

As the lead characters in both of these parodies, one can see a connection, and it isn’t pretty (though it is very funny).

In the first, Taran Killam is out to dinner with wife and friends as a sudden issue makes him wince. Bennett, as a person we initially assume is a friend, senses the problem, and hands him the solution: a tube of Preparation H.

In the second, Bennett’s at a party, and, returning from an overlong trip to the bathroom, explains that he wasn’t using the facilities, but rather, doing cocaine, which he proves by showing off the white powder on his nose.

In each, Bennett is setting himself up as a nutty fool, a needy, insecure weirdo playing social awkwardness and impropriety for laughs.

In the Preparation H commercial, we see Killam back at the table with the people he came with, leading the conversation, smile on his face, problem clearly solved. Normally, this is when an ad of this sort would end.

But then Bennett approaches the table and says, for all to hear, “Hey man, did that stuff I gave you help your butt?” From here, he talks way too openly and in detail about the hemorrhoid cream in front of Killam’s friends as Killam, humiliated, tries to shoo him away. We see that Bennett was not a friend, but a helpful stranger turned stalky nut job, who now thinks Killam owes him one thanks to their new hemorrhoid-cream bond.

The second ad turns out to be a commercial for “Mitchell’s Fake Cocaine,” which you can put on your face to disguise having to take a gross bathroom turn in someone else’s home. As the ad progresses, it becomes a puzzle, as someone complains about the bathroom smell, and Bennett now claims he really did cocaine, and used Mitchell’s Fake Poop Smell, for when you want to cover up using cocaine.

By the end of both – I’m treating the fact that both are poop-related as a coincidence, thought that might not be the case – Bennett’s relationship with those around him has turned hostile. In the first, he winds up regaling the restaurant with his gross Prep-H related endeavors, before finally screaming hysterically at Killam, “You’re my best friend!!!” and dragging him to the bathroom where their hemorrhoid-related adventures must continue. In the latter, Bennett winds up shilling for both of Mitchell’s products, while bringing the party to a gross end.

Subject matter aside, Bennett brings a humanity to his pathetic misfit that makes these more than just fake ads. In a sense, both concern a man struggling to fit in, and making a glorious fool of himself in his failure to do so.

A late entry, this sketch, from the season finale, gave the studio audience a jolt with one of the harshest and funniest surprises of the season.

The sketch rolls its plot out slowly, unfolding as an almost exact parody of Dead Poets Society, and the first few minutes are all set-up. We meet the students in their prep school uniforms as Bobby Moynihan’s strict headmaster takes over from the disgraced teacher – Fred Armisen as Mr. Bunting – and lays down the new rules.

Every question he asks about where the students were in their lessons conveys the message that Mr. Bunting was a different type of teacher, as we learn that they ripped all the pages out of their textbooks to make hats.

Student Beck Bennett reads a passage, at the headmaster’s demand, about how poetry is only for women and homosexuals, and how you are not to feel emotions while reading it. Mr. Bunting, meanwhile, clears out his things in the background as this happens.

He prepares to say goodbye to his students for good, when one by one, they stand on their desks and declare their devotion to their inspirational teacher in a direct rip on the original film’s “Oh captain, my captain” scene.

Soon, they are all standing on their desks, until it gets to Pete Davidson.

What happens next is the sketch’s big joke, which I will not reveal here. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading, and watch it above. If you have seen it, then you know. How incredibly well done was that?

This is comedy by sledgehammer. The long set-up is risky and unusual, and worth every thoughtful, well-detailed second. For a comedic structure like this – a long path to a one-joke payoff – your joke had better be amazing to justify the distance. This one was.

SNL audiences love a surprise guest, and during the cold open of this season’s Tracy Morgan episode, a parody of that week’s Democratic debate, they got one – Alec Baldwin as brief candidate Jim Webb. On top of Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton, the episode was already off on a roll.

But Baldwin was a decoy. The real surprise came during the sketch’s last candidate introduction. As Bernie Sanders was introduced, the crowd applause grew louder as it became clear that Sanders was being played by Larry David.

From the get go, it was hard to see where Sanders ended and David began. One of the great things about this impression is that David changed very little, yet in playing himself, he was a perfect Sanders, the two kvetchy old New Yorkers seeming that in-tune in terms of attitude.

From his answering the moderator’s “How are you?” question with, “I’m good. I’m hungry, but I’m good,” to then launching into a Sandersesque screed of, “We’re doomed! We need a revolution in the streets!” David, while not doing all-out mimicry, captured Sanders essence as if they were twins.

As he proceeded, David’s Sanders dialogue felt at times more like one of David’s (or his friend, Jerry Seinfeld’s) own stand-up routines, as he wondered why banks bothered chaining down their pens. But the connection had already been made and sealed. From the second he opened his mouth, in the eyes of SNL viewers, David was Sanders, and that was how it would remain for the rest of the season.

Come back tomorrow, Tuesday May 24, for the Top 10 sketches of SNL Season 41.

[Watch Saturday Night Live on Hulu]

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.