‘Saturday Night Live’: The Top 16 Sketches Of 2016

Host: Benedict Cumberbatch
Musical Guest: Solange
Date: November 5

Another masterpiece of personal insecurity from Beck Bennett, who writes a game show sketch just to try to understand why the women of the cast go ga-ga for host Cumberbatch (instead of for him). Positioned as a last minute addition that leaves the other participants mystified, Cumberbatch’s “Oh, Beck” sums up why Bennett has become a valuable member of this cast.

Host: Dave Chappelle
Musical Guest: A Tribe Called Quest
Date: November 12

The treat of seeing some of the best-loved characters from Chappelle’s Show makes this a fun watch, but Chappelle’s integration of the just-aired controversial season premiere of The Walking Dead, along with positioning his characters in their place along the political divide, made this funny and relevant.

Host: Fred Armisen
Musical Guest: Courtney Barnett
Date: May 21

Demented weirdness from Armisen and crew, who provide a revised history lesson in the sexual proclivities of the famed explorers as mystified students (and, in Aidy Bryant, one turned-on teacher) look on. The looseness of the actors – Armisen, Cecily Strong, and Kyle Mooney – recalls every hippie who’s ever tried to “really relate” to kids, only to come off like a pretentious nutball.

Host: Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Musical Guest: Nick Jonas
Date: April 16

With so much political import to comedy these days, I love when we get to appreciate something that’s just silly for silly’s sake. This, a commercial for a new Mercedes that runs on over 9,000 AA batteries, reminded me of commercial parodies from the show’s Phil Hartman days, like Colon Blow or the Adobe, the car made out of clay. Host Julia Louis-Dreyfus expertly demonstrates the ease of keeping track of over 9,000 batteries. (Hint: Not that easy.)

Host: Russell Crowe
Musical Guest: Margo Price
Date: April 9

While he’s been overshadowed by the show’s female cast, Beck Bennett has established an SNL persona as clear and well-defined as Leslie Jones’, becoming the guy who’s always out of phase with whatever group he’s with. His “helpful” Preparation H spokesman turns out to be a creepy weirdo in a bar who carries hemorrhoid cream wherever he goes, and makes his gift of one a reason to enmesh himself in Taran Killam’s life. A beautifully bizarre and original take.

Host: Adam Driver
Musical Guest: Chris Stapleton
Date: January 16

Adam Driver reprises his Star Wars role as Kylo Ren, here going undercover on Star Killer Base. Newsflash – he’s not very good at hiding who he is, especially since he can kill people with his mind using the Force. His “Matt” is way too angry to be believable as a mere technician, and his efforts at concealing his identity fall flat from the outset. Good thing he’s got that Force thing going for him.

Host: Brie Larson
Musical Guest: Alicia Keys
Date: May 7

Long-time feminists were taken aback (to put it mildly) to discover that millennial women preferred Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. As they reveled in finally having a woman candidate for president after all this time, many younger women failed to feel the excitement, since they were raised in a time when it always seemed possible. President Barbie addresses this frustration hilariously, as the female voice-over announcer grows increasingly perplexed at young girls who don’t get the big deal about a woman president, seeking instead to spend their time with “an old broom.”

Host: Jonah Hill
Musical Guest: Future
Date: March 5

When SNL is clear about what it wants to say, it’s capable of crafting a message with tight comic precision, as in this fake ad for Donald Trump that called out problematic aspects of his campaign. Featuring everyday voters professing their practical reasons for supporting Trump, the ad creates a reveal for each showing darker motives for their admiration. Many felt SNL had to atone for having had Trump on as host – this was exhibit A that they felt the same.

Host: Larry David
Musical Guest: The 1975
Date: February 6

A sequel to a previous year’s sketch, this took the food ad parody in a drastically different direction, as Vanessa Bayer finds Larry David and his friends watching “the big game,” only to discover there is no game – just the horror emanating from their lightless eyes. Bayer’s switch from happy homemaker to terrified housewife watching her world collapse carries this, another classic of comic misdirection.

Host: Peter Dinklage
Musical Guest: Gwen Stefani
Date: April 2

Peter Dinklage and Leslie Jones, naked together in a sketch – a mismatch made for comedy. This Naked and Afraid parody finds Jones dominating Dinklage as we’d expect in this scenario – they are alternately at each other’s throats, or in a lopsided power battle that Jones naturally wins. Dinklage and Jones together was the great buddy comedy discovery of 2016.

Host: Margot Robbie
Musical Guest: The Weeknd
Date: October 1

An old school premise, well-executed. Host Margot Robbie and new cast member Mikey Day are husband and wife witnesses to a sinkhole implosion. Looks-wise they’re a mismatch, and increasingly incredulous reporter Kenan Thompson can’t process the disparity long enough to focus on his work. Given the precision of the details that make Day unworthy of his love in the eyes of others, from his crocs and puppeteer stats to, in the end, his lack of a penis, the sketch’s comic escalation is as good as it gets, and the depiction of how some men act when confronted with a man who’s with a woman they don’t think he deserves is spot on.

Host: Ariana Grande
Musical Guest: Ariana Grande
Date: March 12

Kate McKinnon was unquestionably SNL‘s biggest star in 2016, and this ad parody shows why. Taking on Hillary Clinton’s awkward shift leftward in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ surprising success, the sketch showed McKinnon morphing from Clinton to her main primary opponent, often tackling, and nailing, the two impressions within a single sentence.

Host: Melissa McCarthy
Musical Guest: Kanye West
Date: February 13

At a time when racial issues have led to more strife than we’ve seen since the ’60s, a public statement of strength and support by one of the country’s most popular performers led to a backlash, as many were put off by Beyonce’s pro-Black Panther performance at the halftime of this year’s Super Bowl. The sketch used exaggerated horror to take on how certain segments of the white audience can accept mainstream African-American performers only until they make explicit statements about racial issues in their art.

Host: Larry David
Musical Guest: The 1975
Date: February 6

This sketch was an extension of an already-realized observation – that Larry David and Bernie Sanders were basically the same guy – that melded the two in a parody of the crotchety David’s famed HBO show. Great parodies fully capture a famous persona; this sketch nailed two of them at once and made it look natural.

Host: Fred Armisen
Musical Guest: Courtney Barnett
Date: May 21

The sketch took its time setting up what amounted to its single joke, but what a great joke it was. This parody of Dead Poets Society used comic misdirection to take its high-class premise to gory heights, and the end result brought the kind of audience howls that are hard to achieve in most comic settings, much less on SNL in 2016.

Host: Larry David
Musical Guest: The 1975
Date: February 6

Kevin Roberts is a conundrum wrapped in a mystery and poured into a Day-Glo orange suit, and Larry David makes the most of a character that fits no comic cliches. Kevin Roberts is a wholly unique creation, half business bro, half neighborhood eccentric, all throwback to a earlier time. SNL catchphrases don’t hit the zeitgeist with the force of the past, but “Can a bitch get a donut?” was one of the more memorable lines to emerge from the show in years.

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.

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