The Unstreamables: A Modest Proposal For SNL50

NBC has big plans to mark Saturday Night Live’s milestone 50th season, including at least five documentaries about the show, a musical celebration at Radio City Music Hall, and, of course, the requisite star-packed prime time anniversary special.

All are sure to be catnip for fans of the show. But if Lorne Michaels and team are looking for another unique way to give back to longtime fans, here’s hoping they might consider adding one more special to the mix. 

As part of the cultural lexicon for the last half century, SNL’s history is our history. NBC and Michaels’ SNL Studios have clearly embraced this concept, making much of the show’s vast archive available for streaming on Peacock, YouTube, NBC.com, and even on an SNL-branded FAST Channel.

If you’re looking for something that aired on the show over the last decade, the vast majority of sketches are easily available on one of the show’s official streaming channels. Likewise, you’ll find mostly complete episodes from SNL’s landmark first five years on Peacock. It’s in the show’s middle 35 seasons where things get a bit more spotty.

That’s largely due to the expense and complexity of retroactively clearing streaming rights for any non-original music included in the show—from musical guest performances to song parodies to incidental background music that might appear in a sketch. Those rights have been acquired for  Seasons 1 through 5, and in an ideal world, Michaels and team would do the same for the show’s middle years. But that’s a Herculean task for what’s likely to be a relatively small audience.

Instead, we’ve got a more modest proposal, and one that’s likely to be of more interest to a general audience, anyway: A TV special comprising some of the show’s best “lost” sketches. One might call them the “The Unstreamables.”

What types of sketches might such a special include? Here’s a small sampling:

Single Ladies (Season 34) — Beyoncé has performed on Saturday Night Live as musical guest four times (including twice with Destiny’s Child). But it’s her cameo in this 2008 sketch that’s probably her most memorable appearance. In it, she plays straight man to a leotard-clad Andy Samberg, Bobby Moynihan, and Justin Timberlake in a reimagining of her iconic music video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”

The Sweeney Sisters: Ski Lodge (Season 13) — Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn’s lounge-singing sisters Liz and Candy Sweeney made 10 SNL appearances all told, but a personal favorite is this 1986 installment that sees the clueless duo clang-clang-clang their way through Paul Simon’s musical catalog—in front of a mortified Simon. 

VH1 Storytellers (Season 23) — One sketch that was clearly worth NBC and SNL spending the time and money to clear the musical rights is “More Cowbell.” But Will Ferrell also starred in this similarly themed sketch from the same era, in which Ferrell’s Diamond shares a series of increasingly disturbing stories behind his most famous songs.

MTV Spring Break (Season 27) — If you’re like me, you can’t hear Shania Twain’s “That Don’t Impress Me Much” without being reminded of this 2002 sketch starring Cameron Diaz and Maya Rudolph as two MTV Spring Breakers who can’t seem to get enough of that song, even though by then it was already several years old. 

The Fifth Beatle (Season 9) — Eddie Murphy famously saved SNL from cancelation after Michaels and the show’s original Not Ready For Primetime Players left in 1980. Four years in, near the peak of his popularity, Murphy memorably played Clarence Walker (a.k.a .“The Fifth Beatle”), a saxophone player who claims he created the group’s look and music before they kicked him out—and he had the recordings of classic Beatles songs (with saxophone played over them) to prove it.

Say Anything (Season 35) — Joseph Gordon-Levitt recreated the iconic Say Anything movie scene where John Cusack shows up under Ione Skye’s window blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” from his boombox. Only this time he’s joined by a curious neighbor (played by Jason Sudeikis).

The Culps: Mandatory Drug Awareness Assembly (Season 26) — Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer portrayed husband-and-wife music teachers Marty Culp and Bobbi Mohan-Culp on SNL a whopping 20 times. But it’s their wild rendition of Eminem’s “Stan” that still haunts to this day.

The Bulge (Season 10) — This SNL short film starred Jim Belushi as a failed pickup artist whose fortunes turn after he stuffs his pants with just about everything he can find in the men’s restroom. The latter half of the short, which features a 23-year-old Julia Louis-Dreyfus back when she was an SNL cast member, is scored to Bruce Springsteen’s then-contemporary hit, “Cover Me.” 

I’m No Angel (Season 34) — Something of a spiritual cousin to “The Bulge,” Amy Poehler stars in this almost entirely dialogue-free sketch that casts her a very pregnant barfly who steals the scene as she crosses the bar (toward host Josh Brolin) to the tune of Gregg Allman’s “I’m No Angel.” (Poehler, who was actually pregnant at the time, gave birth to son Archie a week later.)

Donald Trump’s House of Wings (Season 29) — Producers might choose to skip this for obvious reasons, but it’s another much-talked about sketch that’s not available on any of SNL’s official channels. A satirical predecessor to Trump Bibles, Trump Sneakers and Trump NFTs, “Trump’s House of Wings” sees the future president promoting his own chicken wing restaurant alongside several of his future late-night antagonists—all dressed in chicken costumes as they sing a jingle to the tune of The Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love).”

Omeletteville (Season 29) — Speaking of costumes: this Justin Timberlake vehicle was the first in a series of memorable “mascot” sketches that were chock full of those pesky song parodies. The only ones currently available for streaming are “Veganville” (Season 38) and “Wrappinville” (Season 39).

Stumblin’ (Season 36) — A good number of The Lonely Island’s 100+ SNL Digital Shorts are available online, but a handful of the most memorable ones are not—again, largely due to music rights. This 2010 entry sees Andy Samberg and Paul Rudd stumble their way across NYC to the tune of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” complete with a mid-sketch interlude featuring Paul McCartney and a tiny harmonica solo.

Josie’s Younger Brother (Season 39) — Josh Hutcherson headlined this 2013 sketch as an ’80s era sophomore who lip-syncs the lyrics to the 1985 Outfeld song “Your Love” to his sister’s friend Veronica (Vanessa Bayer). 

Halloween Party (Season 40) — Jim Carrey and Kate McKinnon stole the show when they broke out of the confines of this Halloween party sketch and brought their competing Maddie Zieglers across the floor of Studio 8H in an inspired homage to Sia’s “Chandelier” music video.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As regular listeners of LateNighter’s Inside Late Night podcast know, anyone who’s written for the show can name at least a handful of sketches they wish were online.

So what do you say, Lorne and team? Say the word and we’ll happily survey our readers for a list of “lost” sketches they’d love to see again.

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