SNL 40: WTFery Afoot!

Sometimes, you watch a Saturday Night Live skit and just think… WTF. These skits are sometimes legitimately funny but mostly earn laughs from unbelieving audiences wondering just what the heck they’re seeing. Often relegated to the back 30-minutes of the show, these skits sometimes fall flat, but you can’t help but admire and celebrate the willingness to take chances. That is, after all, what comedy is all about. Share your own weirdness below as this is unlikely a complete list.

Before tonight’s 40th anniversary special airs, if you’d like more SNL discussion, then please check out the recent Awards Daily TV Water Cooler podcast on our SNL favorites or feel free to post your own on our Facebook page or through our Twitter feed.

Tonto, Tarzan, and Frankenstein: We Are the World

The pairing of this mumbling literary trio became something of a cult favorite in the late 80s and early 90s, eventually becoming more and more popular the more they appeared. But you have to give credit to the SNL minds that dreamed up this concept. Whatever they were smoking, it provided great comedy for years.

A Magical Christmas

We talked about this one on the podcast, but no discussion of the most bizarre SNL skits would ever be complete without mentioning it. Guest host Amy Adams, Kate McKinnon, and Cecily Strong star as three singing sisters who are attempting to woo two men (Bobby Moynihan and Kyle Mooney) into giving them garbage. That’s right, garbage. There’s a reveal at the end that I won’t spoil here, but, suffice to say, it received a big pile of hate but legitimately gets funnier on second viewing.

Nude Beach

This skit penned by Conan O’Brien in 1988 took three attempts to get on the air, and once it did, it allegedly received over 46,000 complaint letters. Looking at it through 2015 gogles, it’s just bizarre that SNL was so determined to use the word “penis” so much during a single skit. Judge for yourself on the overall quality of this penile weirdness.

Dooneese

Kristen Wiig’s collection of bizarre characters included Dooneese, the sexually aggressive woman-child with tiny, wandering hands. Many, many, many people have written about how much they hate this character, but there’s still something bizarrely funny about how dedicated Wiig was to making Dooneese work as comedy. She appeared in multiple skits beginning with a Lawrence Welk parody (where Dooneese chased bubbles around the set with her tiny hands) and branched out to other opportunities including this parody of NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! event.