SNL Digital Shorts

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The opening title used for each short.
The opening title used for each short.

SNL Digital Shorts are short video segments created for airing on NBC's Saturday Night Live. The segments are recorded with consumer grade digital video cameras and edited on personal computers.[1]

The Lonely Island is largely responsible for producing the comedic shorts. Most of the shorts were written by Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg in collaboration with SNL hosts and cast members. The shorts generally take fewer than five days to complete. Schaffer has directed all the shorts and Taccone along with his brother, Asa, have produced music as necessary. Actors Tom Hanks, Matthew Fox, Steve Martin, Natalie Portman, Dane Cook, Lindsay Lohan, John C. Reilly, Justin Timberlake, Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, and Rainn Wilson have starred in the shorts, and Scarlett Johansson, Conan O'Brien and Brian Williams made cameo appearances in the February 4, 2006 short "The Tangent".

The short "Lazy Sunday," which aired December 17, 2005, was viewed more than five million times on YouTube alone before it was removed because of copyright infringement. In late 2006, however, NBC began uploading SNL shorts on YouTube themselves. The short "Dick in a Box," which aired in December 2006, was viewed more than 19 million times on YouTube.

Contents

[edit] List of shorts

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] 2005

Title Original airdate Description
Lettuce 3 December 2005 In what is revealed to be a commercial for the vegetable, two friends (Will Forte, Andy Samberg) discuss the death of an unnamed friend while taking large bites out of heads of lettuce.
Lazy Sunday
[1]
17 December 2005 Chris Parnell and Samberg rap about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, cupcakes, Mr. Pibb, Red Vines, Matthew Perry and a host of other products.

[edit] 2006

Title Original airdate Description
Young Chuck Norris 21 January 2006 A Chuck Norris fan (Jason Sudeikis) sings a ballad for him with an accompanying music video.
The Tangent 4 February 2006 Joel (Fred Armisen) rambles to his friend about a date he went on. In seconds, he is so caught up in his story that he doesn't notice that his friend has walked off. While talking endlessly, he is discovered by talent scouts (Bill Hader, Parnell), stars in a movie with Scarlett Johansson, becomes a national phenomenon and loses it all when his movie flopped at the box office - all without stopping his endless monologue. Hader takes him back to where he was found, where he finally stops talking, rhetorically asks where his girlfriend went, shrugs and walks off.
Close Talkers 4 February 2006 Two old friends from school (Forte, Steve Martin) meet up after years apart, greeting each other loudly while standing with their faces only an inch apart.
A Day In The Life of Natalie Portman 4 March 2006 Natalie Portman is interviewed about her life and responds with a rap proving she is a "badass bitch."
Doppelgänger 11 March 2006 Seth Meyers, Forte, and Samberg are on a lunch break and start to notice that each one has a doppelgänger nearby. After Meyers and Forte say that a large bum (Horatio Sanz) is Samberg's doppelgänger, they kill the real Samberg in an evil twin scenario.
Laser Cats! 15 April 2006 Hader and Samberg pitch to Lorne Michaels their new ultra low-budget Digital Short, Laser Cats! The short within the short is about a future where a nuclear war causes cats to be mutated into weapons that shoot lasers from their mouths. Hader and Samberg play Nitro and Admiral Spaceship, respectively, and have to rescue a princess (Lindsay Lohan) from what appears to be her lunch break.
Ariel & Efrim 6 May 2006 Friends in the early 90s (Kenan Thompson, Forte, and Parnell) discuss the music video by pop stars Ariel (Samberg) and Efrim (Tom Hanks), where we see the lyrics consist of constantly begging for their testicles not to be harmed, in a parody of Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" and C+C Music Factory's "Everybody Dance Now".
Peyote 13 May 2006 An apparent suicide jumper (Samberg) is negotiated with by a man on a bullhorn (Forte). After a bit of dialogue, it is revealed that the "jumper" is safely on the ground and the man with the bullhorn is mere inches away from him. This is revealed to be a commercial in the same vein as Lettuce, this time for peyote.
Andy Walking 20 May 2006 Samberg asks factual questions of passers-by outside NBC Studios in the style of the Jay Leno bit Jaywalking, instead laughing off correct answers as false.
Cubicle Fight 30 September 2006 New office employee Gary (Hader) gets into a fight to the death with incumbent cubicle holder Steve (host Dane Cook).
Harpoon Man 21 October 2006 Harpoon Man (John C. Reilly), a suave action hero and parody of Shaft, tracks down an insulting announcer dressed as a whale (Samberg), who is narrating his life in a theme song.
Pep Talk 9 December 2006 A fast food boss (Armisen) gives his employees (Forte, Matthew Fox, Amy Poehler, Samberg, Thompson) a pep talk and has trouble controlling his anger until one of his employees (Forte) comes in late. The short ends with a Lost-style graphic saying "Happy Holidays".
  • Originally scheduled to air on the Matthew Fox hosted episode a week earlier.
Dick in a Box
[2]
16 December 2006 A Christmas Song about two men (Justin Timberlake and Samberg) giving their lovers (Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph) a box with their genitalia inside as presents. The style of the video and the musical performance is reminiscent of early 1990s R&B sex ballads made popular by acts like Bel Biv Devoe, Color Me Badd, and R. Kelly.

[edit] 2007

Title Original airdate Description
Laser Cats! 2 13 January 2007 Hader and Samberg apologize to Lorne Michaels for the original Laser Cats!, claiming to understand where they went wrong: not enough politics. They then introduce their new Laser Cats!, based on a future where the Iraq War has led to nuclear attacks. This time, Nitro and Admiral Spaceship must fight Dr. Scientist (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has stolen the cure that turns Laser Cats back into regular cats, with the complication that Admiral Spaceship no longer fights with Laser Cats.
Nurse Nancy 20 January 2007 Scott Garbaciak (Samberg) is the star of the fictional film, Nurse Nancy. The trailer reveals Garbaciak to be playing all the film's roles, resembling Eddie Murphy films such as Norbit and The Nutty Professor.
  • Originally filmed for the 18 November 2006 show, but cut after the dress rehearsal.
Body Fusion 3 February 2007 Drew Barrymore is Desiree, host of a 1986 sexually suggestive, low-impact, high-result exercise video Body Fusion, with "her friends" Donna, Michelle, and Donna M. (Rudolph, Wiig, and Poehler respectively).
  • The original video was presented, like Laser Cats!, as a full-screen video within Saturday Night Live's widescreen presentation. NBC later posted a second, cropped version on YouTube so that the picture would not appear so small. This version contained an alternate ending in which Body Fusion was viewed by the characters in the film The Ring. The alternate version is said to be shown during Dress Rehearsal.
Andy Popping Into Frame 10 February 2007 Samberg quietly pops into view as the camera routinely cuts to different locations and landmarks. Forte soon begins doing the same a few times, before being forced out at gunpoint.
Business Meeting 24 February 2007 A corporate executive (Rainn Wilson) leads a meeting to take ideas on how to save his failing company. He hears suggestions from an increasingly bizarre set of employees, including Mountain Joe, Crazy Carl, a young child, a giant turkey sandwich, a mounted tiger head, an Invisible Man, and the episode's musical guest Arcade Fire.

[edit] Dress rehearsal shorts

These shorts were filmed and shown to the studio audience during the weekly SNL dress rehearsal, but were not included in the live show and have yet to appear on air.

Title Date Intended to Air Description
Lobster Cop 8 April 2006 A police officer (Samberg) with lobster claws struggles to eat his meal in a diner.
Gawker Hopefuls 28 October 2006 Samberg and Armisen attempt to get noticed by Gawker Magazine.
Ron's Rap 17 March 2007 Andy Samberg performs a rap about his brother in-law named Ron.

[edit] Other Lonely Island shorts on SNL

Produced by The Lonely Island,[2][3] and/or labelled Digital Shorts on official YouTube postings, these shorts aired on an SNL episode but not with the official SNL Digital Short title card.

Title Original Airdate Description
An SNL Movie Trailer Recut: Apocalypto 9 December 2006 The trailer for Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto is newly subtitled, implying that the Jews destroyed the Maya civilization, in reference to Gibson's anti-semitic remarks in 2006.
MacGruber 20 January 2007 In three parodies of MacGyver, the titular hero (Forte) demands odd objects of his disgusted sidekick (Jeremy Piven) in order to stop catastrophic events that are mere seconds away.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Sloths 10 February 2007 A Staten Island Zoo worker (Wiig) introduces Staten Island Tech High School student's crude and vile documentary on sloths before previewing it herself.
United Way 24 March 2007 Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning takes time out to mentor some kids. He is very bad at it.
Spoilers end here.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Itzkoff, Dave. "Nerds in the Hood, Stars on the Web", New York Times, December 27, 2005.
  2. ^ Tam, Chester (December 10, 2006). The Lonely Island's Chez-Chat: Apocalypto Re-cut.
  3. ^ Tam, Chester (March 26, 2007). Peyton Manning SNL Digital Short "United Way".

3. A Special Christmas Box Parodies of SNL Digital Shorts on YouTube