SNL

SNL hasn’t yet revealed its final host of Season 41, let alone what, if any cast turnover to expect in Season 42, but a notable change is already afoot. The NBC mainstay will cut at least two commercial breaks from live airings next season, but what might replace the additional runtime?

SNL had always intended to take off the coming weekend in preparation for its final May shows, but given the tragic passing of music icon Prince, NBC will pay tribute to the late star with a special highlight of the artist’s musical performances.

SNL has had only a moderate April, between hosts Peter Dinklage, Russell Crowe and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but fans can easily agree on at least one gem: “Space Pants.” Were there further need to settle the debate, SNL has obliged with full-length rendition of the interstellar track, Gwen Stefani and all.

Maybe a better title for this fake trailer for a fake faith-based drama would be God's Not Gay, but you can see how that one might have been a bit too risky. In the one sketch that didn't feature guest host Julia Louis-Dreyfus, SNL offers this hilariously silly satire of movies like God's Not Dead (okay, mostly just that movie alone), complete with Lifetime Original movie production values and melodramatic courtroom scenes.

Naked & Afraid is an actual reality show that just began its fifth season on the Discovery Channel, but it sounds so much like something that was cooked up in the SNL writers’ room that you can be forgiven for thinking it’s entirely a gag. The premise is patently ridiculous: two strangers are thrown into the wild without clothing or supplies and must survive for 21 days. But SNL has devised a “celebrity” edition of the show and they tossed guest host Peter Dinklage and the incredible Leslie Jones into it.

Many have tried to compete with SNL in the realm of Saturday sketch comedy, though few ever shared as much DNA as FOX’s upcoming Lonely Island-produced Party Over Here. It took us aback to see Andy Samberg going against his former boss, but the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star reveals that the group made sure their series wouldn’t compete in the SNL timeslot, or move forward without Lorne Michaels’ approval.

Just days into the movie’s run as the most successful R-rated opening of all time, Deadpool seemingly broke a fifth wall with a 20,000-strong petition to host SNL, or at least Ryan Reynolds in character. Take your pick of reasons that would never happen, but now Deadpool has given an official response, dragging Kanye West’s recent backstage tirade into the mix.

Around this time last year, SNL presented a commercial parody centering around Totino’s Pizza Rolls, just in time for the Super Bowl. And it was a nasty piece of business, tearing apart the image of the NFL’s biggest game as a day for men and imprisoning Vanessa Bayer’s indefatigable housewife in the kitchen, where she was simply tasked with warming up more disgusting food. So when SNL aired another Totino’s sketch in last night’s episode, we simply assumed it would be a carbon copy of the first one. Boy, were we wrong.

If you're going to have the great Larry David host a full episode of SNL, there are two obvious areas of parody. First, you simply have to give him more to do as Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, whose unlikely showing in the recent Democratic presidential primaries have made David a regular guest star this season. Second, you need to riff on Curb Your Enthusiasm, his (possibly) late, great HBO sitcom that redefined cringe comedy. And in this case, SNL found a a way to combine the two.

Welp, with MadTV old enough to celebrate a 20-year anniversary (and otherwise off the air to boot), it was only a matter of time SNL found itself with a little Saturday night competition. Still - gasp! - former SNL dream team The Lonely Island will lead the charge of FOX’s new sketch comedy rival, Party Over Here.

Back in those optimistic days of 2015, SNL made a trumpeting announcement that Taran Killam would succeed series vet Darrell Hammond under Donald Trump’s famous hair, though the impression seemed to have been retired with the presidential candidate’s actual hosting. Hammond has resumed the role ever since, with Killam shifting into the role of Texas senator Ted Cruz, though it seems SNL had in mind to tap Jimmy Fallon’s Trump impression in December, before returning the role to Hammond.

When the 2016 Oscar nominations were announced nearly two weeks ago, the response to the overwhelmingly white line-up of talent proved instantly controversial. Film fans and industry veterans alike gathered around the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag to make their voices heard, especially decrying how films starring black actors and directed by black filmmakers — like Creed and Straight Outta Compton — somehow managed to only receive nominations for the white people involved in making them. With material this ripe, of course SNL was going to take a swipe at the Academy Awards this week.

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Adam Driver hosting 2016’s first episode of SNL, a Kylo Ren sketch of some kind was inevitable. After all, you don't get the actor who plays the villain in one of the biggest movies of all time to appear on your comedy variety show and not have him reprise that character. And we'll give the show this much: we never would have predicted a faux episode of Undercover Boss set on Starkiller Base, with the angry, murderous Kylo Ren going undercover amongst his troops as a radar technician named Matt.

It’s a testament to the staying power of certain public figures that they’ve been played by more than one SNL cast member over the years. People like Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady turned former Senator turned former Secretary of State turned current Democratic Presidential frontrunner, linger on long past Saturday Night Live cast rotations. So what is the show to do when one of its guest hosts used to play a vital and very much in the public eye politician back in the day? Put her on stage with the current version, of course.

Sure, there are lots of kids and teens buying Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys, but a long, long time ago in a galaxy that is actually this one, Star Wars belonged to another group of nerds — and those nerds are not going to let today’s kids take ownership of their fandom so easily, especially when these kids don’t know that action figures should STAY. IN. THE. BOX.

Maybe you didn’t realize how much you missed Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush impression on SNL until the actor popped in for a surprise appearance during the cold open, delivering a State of the Union address on our current crop of GOP presidential hopefuls — which is essentially just Ferrell’s Dubbya roasting his fellow Republicans in an attempt to make an unprecedented bid for a third term as POTUS.