Let's face the brutal truth here for a moment: Saturday Night Live isn't really known for its live sketches anymore. I can't remember the last time I heard someone talk about how funny a sketch was on a past week's show. However, when it comes to their digital shorts, well, then they're the bomb (as the young generation is saying today). The trend began last year with the super-colossally popular Lazy Sunday short, followed weeks later by the semi-super-colossally popular Laser Cats. The digital short sensation continued this year with Dick in a Box and Peyton Manning for the United Way.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that NBC is trying to jump on the popularity of these shorts with a contest that will send one lucky participant to the season finale of SNL.

The Whitest Kids U'Know was presented to us with a roll of toilet paper, and an announcement proclaiming that it's "A comedy movement that is dropping on March 20th." So, when the intro to a show leads off with toilet humor, you know you're in for something really special. The teaser they showed involved an excited couple nervously talking about trying to get pregnant, and when the time comes to reveal the test, she can't read it and asks him to do it. He tells her, "That's my IPod shuffle. You peed on my iPod shuffle. You're such a f*cking bitch."

Harsh, but funny! Granted, I love sketch comedy ... probably more than a human being should, but with the gradual downslide of Saturday Night Live ('Dick in a Box' and 'Lazy Sunday' notwithstanding), this show is about the funniest thing I've seen sketch-wise in a long time. They've been seen all over CollegeHumor.com and YouTube, so check 'em out online.

Although this was announced as an upcoming show on the Sundance Channel back in 2005, did anything ever happen with it? This version of the show premieres on Fuse on March 20th at 11PM eastern.

The guys from the Lonely Island comedy troupe have been three of the most important additions to the Saturday Night Live family in a very long time. Andy Samberg is now one of the most recognizable faces on the cast, and Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer have lent their writing expertise to some of the most famous sketches of the past few seasons. For example, the "SNL Digital Shorts", like the wildly popular "Lazy Sunday", were these boys' doing.

Well, it sounds like the guys are thinking about putting their talents to LP form. Samberg recently said that they'd like to try to create an entire album of their now-famous style of hip-hop knock-offs. I'm not sure if I'd jump at the chance to buy a collection of songs like "Dick in a Box", but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't think about it.

To update Joel's post from yesterday, it looks like we now know what Saturday Night Live cast members have been let go, and which one just got a promotion.

Check it out: the L.A. Times says that that Horatio Sanz, Kenan Thompson, and Chris Parnell (seen on the right with Andy Samberg, who will stay with the show) are gone. At the same time, Jason Sudeikis has been given the Weekend Update slot vacated when Tina Fey went off to do 30 Rock (with another person who left SNL, Rachel Dratch). Looks like Amy Poehler will be taken off the Weekend Update segment. They're still negoiating with veteran cast member Darrell Hammond.

What do you think of these changes? I won't be sad to see Sanz go. His outbreaks of laughter were funny the first 12 times, not so much after that.

NBC has been fighting with YouTube ever since fans of Saturday Night Live started publishing clips from the show, starting with the well-known 'Lazy Sunday' digital short a while back. It seems NBC may have finally realized what a hit YouTube made of the digital shorts from SNL and will start placing promos for upcoming shows on the site, including some Tonight Show clips.

What I wonder now is, will NBC still cry foul when SNL digital shorts appear on the site, or will they simply start showing them themselves?

[via Digg]

(S31E20) Hiya. This is Annie, filling in for Jonathan Toomey. It's probably better that he didn't get a chance to watch the episode because it was somewhat disappointing. I was expecting the season finale to end with a bang, but that was a really stupid thing to wish. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I was expecting that, because the whole season has been somewhat lackluster. However, this episode has cemented my belief that they need to dump their oldest talent (and Finesse) and immediately bump their Featured Players to full status. The host, Kevin Spacey, did a pretty good job with the material given, which wasn't much. Let's just say I'm not going to be pining for this show over the summer.

(S31E18) There was a lot to like about this episode, but there was a lot that should never seen the light of day too. For Hanks' eighth outing at SNL host, I would have expected a bit more. We've already seen so much this season with episodes from other classic hosts like Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, that I was hoping maybe we'd get cameos from some of them. Another one of those "welcome to the club" sketches would have been funny... with those fez hats, cigars, and smoking jackets. Oh well, like I said, there was still plenty to like.

Cold Open - Politically charged as usual, the show opened with Bush and Cheney chit-chatting and discussing the current state of oil reserves and gasoline prices. Tom Hanks (as Senator Bill Frist) then shows up to tell the President about his new plan since his recent idea for a $100 gas rebate for all Americans did nothing except what the President described as "eat it." The entire conversation then evolved into some kind of infomercial where Frist was selling his new plan to Bush. As a token of the Government's thanks for allowing the drilling in Alaska, all Americans would now get $120, a free vacation to Busch Gardens, and two free Wonder Mops. Sounds like a deal to me... well maybe I'd do it if there were two re-fill shammies to come with the mops. What's that? There are two shammies? Sign me up!

Lawyers. They're the real "Debbie Downers" of this world. The fellas over at YouTube have been told by NBC that they can no longer play the now-infamous Lazy Sunday rap from SNL. That rap was huge for SNL, which has been at rock bottom for several years now. After it aired on Dec. 17, Lazy Sunday spread rapidly on the web, including at YouTube, which reportedly had 1.2 million downloads of the video within ten days. The popularity of the rap led to an article in the New York Times about the song and the "viral" power the internet has when people think something is cool. NBC finally got a clue and put the video on its website (for Windows users only) and in iTunes, where it now costs $1.99 to download.

Boing Boing has a really good argument about why NBC should be "sending flowers and chocolates to YouTube, not love notes from lawyers."

Here's my message to the internet: stop trying to rip off the Narnia rap from SNL!

It was hilarious. You are not.

Case in point: Mark Feuerstein (from Good Morning, Miami) and Adam Stein launched an East Coast/West Coast rap battle with SNL'ers Andy Samburg and Chris Parnell, the geniuses behind the Lazy Sunday, aka Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia rap video.

Boys, you really shouldn't enter into a battle you cannot win. The two 'Steins created a West Coast version of the rap, called Lazy Monday (because no one in L.A. has a job). They take their bad asses to drink Macchiatos and paint pottery at a Color Me Mine store. It's not nearly as funny, or as catchy of a tune as the Narnia rap.

Nothing beats the original.

[Via Pop Candy]

During the weekend our comments were down, we got a pleasant little e-mail from a woman named Sandra. She was responding to Jonathan's post that gave five reasons to kill the CSI character Nick Stokes.

Sandra's eight-point missive told us a number a different things that we didn't really know about ourselves; namely, that we were "presumptuous", "shallow", and "stupid". At least our arguments were characterized that way. But what really struck me was this statement:

"7. Your website is pretty bland. This was my first time coming here and probably my last since I don't think I've met such a group of cantankerous writers in my life. I hate whiney writers."

She then signed off by calling us "Scrooges" and "Grinches."  At least she was in the holiday spirit.

Whiney? Cantankerous? Us? Well, maybe, but we're only that way because we care.

Interesting article in today's New York Times about the genesis of the "Lazy Sunday" film that took the SNL audience and the Internet by storm. The article, written by Dave Itzkoff, focuses mainly on Andy Samberg and the two other members of the comedy group The Lonely Island, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. All three got hired by Lorne Michaels on the strength of short Web films that were similar to "Lazy Sunday", which led to work on Comedy Central and MTV as well as the SNL gig.

Then, the article goes into the process of how the movie was written, shot, and put together, all in the Tuesday thru Saturday timeframe the rest of the staff gets to create their "magic." The funniest detail? The rap was recorded on a laptop that Taccone bought on Craigslist.

Want to buy a t-shirt that'll be the ultimate in hip fashion for the next day or two? Go to Blue Collar Distro and buy a t-shirt based on the "Lazy Sunday" short that was on SNL two weeks ago and has been making its way around the Internet ever since. The sketch is getting so popular, that you can download it from iTunes for free and you can download animated avatars that have been made from stills of the sketch.  Of course, this will all look pretty dorky by March, but who cares?

[via Lost Remote]

This link's been floating around the web since Sunday, but I figured it would be good to post this here. If you missed Saturday night's SNL (I did; I was actually out having a life for once) but want to see the "Lazy Sunday" sketch -- otherwize known as the "Chronicles of Narnia Rap", you can see it here. I must say, it's inspired, and it's one of the best things I've seen on SNL in a number of years. So, if I were taking that poll we set up on who's leaving the show, I'd probably not vote for Chris Parnell, just so the show can pair him up with Andy Samberg for another rap.

Oh, the video's also at NBC's site for the show.

Thanks to Tom Biro for the screen cap and for pointing me to the lyrics, which have been posted at Gothamist.