Another Saturday Night Live writer joined the ranks of Jack Handey, Robert Smigel, and Tom Schiller with the debut of his own branded short this weekend. On Saturday’s Ariana Grande-hosted episode, writer Dan Bulla delivered the show’s first “Saturday Night Live Midnight Matinee.”
Viewers got their first look at what will presumably become a familiar sight on SNL when the short “My Best Friend’s House” aired in the show’s near-midnight slot. The pre-taped sketch kicked off with the type of fanfare not often given to Saturday Night Live sketches: its own “Midnight Matinee” intro animation.
Though rare, it’s certainly not an unprecedented framework for SNL, harkening back to recurring segments like Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts”—but also franchises that cast a much wider net with their content, like Robert Smigel’s “TV Funhouse,” Tom Schiller’s “Schiller’s Reel and “Schiller Visions,” and The Lonely Island’s “SNL Digital Short.”
In more recent years, the writing trio behind sketch group Please Don’t Destroy have branded their shorts with “A Please Don’t Destroy Video.” (However, unlike PDD and TV Funhouse, it seems Midnight Matinee will not be getting billing in Saturday Night Live’s opening credits—at least not to start.)
“My Best Friend’s House” begins with Grande singing a poppy ode to the familiar, comforting scent of her best friend’s house, backed up by anthropomorphic furniture from the home. Halfway through, the short takes a dramatic twist, revealing that the friend’s dad is a serial killer compelled to kill by the talking furniture.
An end-card brands the sketch as “A Dan Bulla Short.”
Bulla wrote “My Best Friend’s House” with Steven Castillo and Ceara Jane O’Sullivan. It was directed by SNL pre-taped shorts director Mike Diva.
“It took so many people working round the clock to make this possible,” Bulla wrote on Instagram this weekend.
While this is Bulla’s first branded short, it’s far from the first short he’s produced for the show. In fact, the vanity card that caps off the “Midnight Matinee” segment reflects that. The animation, created by SNL film unit creative director leigh mcG, features four characters from shorts Bulla has created in past years: the horse from “Tiny Horse,” a meatball from “Meatballs,” the “pet with no holes” Pongo, and a shrimp cocktail from “Shrimp Tower.” (Most of those shorts starred Sarah Sherman, who has become a frequent collaborator of Bulla’s since joining the show in 2021.)
Bulla joined the Saturday Night Live writers’ room in 2019 for Season 45. He was promoted to writing supervisor at the start of this season. Bulla also worked with Adam Sandler on his last two standup specials, which included co-writing and performing Sandler’s closing number “Here Comes the Comedy” in Adam Sandler: Love You.