Saturday Night Live Goes Commercial

In the beginning, there was sketch comedy. And it was good. And the comedy Gods, distrustful of those poll-taking, focus-group-loving marketing God/punks said, "let there be parodies of vaunted super brands." And it was better.

Even in years when Saturday Night Live lost some of its punch - its flair for biting the hand that fed it, and waiting for that hand to come back for more - one thing has remained consistently funny: SNL's commercial parodies. Seemingly, these parodies have managed to lampoon every aspect of the advertising world. From Dan Aykroyd's bungling delivery of the `Bass-O-Matic,' burlesquing the Ronco / Ron Popeil line of products, to that refreshing after-work all-natural domestic water `Swill' resembling something more akin to slime than Evian. But wouldn't you know it, SNL's Bill Murray just loves it.

Many will remember these sketches as old friends: Phil Hartman atop the ever-growing pyramid of bran as he narrates the exact number of bowls of his `regular' cereal would take to equal just one bowl of `Colon Blow,' (and now *NEW* `Super Colon Blow'. Roseanne (Barr? Arnold?) deadpanning her concern for a credit card customer's plight: Roseanne `I told him he could take out a check, roll it real tight, and cram it!' Hartman `She gave me a lot of options.' Others are more obscure, but nevertheless timeless: `The Network Battle of the 'T's and 'A's. The biggest T s and the hottest A s.' An SNL commercial parody from the 70s era, which may have inspired FOX's current lineup of `television.'

Whatever you're memories of SNL, chances are, the sketches have made you giggle, but the parodies have made you laugh so hard, it made you take a look at the real commercials, and wonder Which is more amusing? The parody, or the fact that Madison Avenue hasn't figured out the punch line?

Do yourself a favor, and add this to your home video/DVD collection. It'll make you feel like you just discovered SNL again.

Would anyone be willing to download the Roseanne/Phil Hartman "Metrocard" commercial to YouTube? I would be so grateful. I have searched all over the internet for a clip and cannot locate it. I tried to purchase this DVD from Amazon.com, etc. But it's not available for sale. If anyone could help me out, I would really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Now I have to somehow meet the minimum-line post requirement, so excuse me for rambling, but this site won't let me post until I fill ten whole lines with my meaningless, random thoughts. It would be so cool if someone read this post and actually posted the commercial. I hope that this site does not ban me from ever posting again.

I love this video, as it shows dozens of the funniest commercial parodies from SNL, though I could remember a few that were not included (such as Meatway Raceway). And as a result of all these great ads, the show is nearly perfect, though I have no idea why the producers insisted on including a rather annoying narration and new content featuring Kevin Nealon instead of just giving us a few more parodies. His intermittent bits just aren't funny and tend to disrupt the flow of the show. My advice is just try to look beyond this and ignore or fast-forward through these segments. Highlights, for me, on this show were "Happy Fun Ball" and "Finger Off", though there were some other classics that were nearly as funny (such as "Mel's Char Palace"). See it and have a good laugh.

By the way, if you like this, another funny compilation episode was created in 2005 and features mostly newer ads.