Best And Worst SNL Sketches Of The Season

Saturday Night Live's 2017-2018 season was one of the most high-profile in the show's 43-year history. Alec Baldwin returned every few weeks or so to continue his over-the-top portrayal of President Donald Trump, new cast members Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd made a huge impression, and veteran performers like Kenan Thompson and Emmy-winner Kate McKinnon cemented their legacies. 

While former SNL cast members and writers such as Tina Fey, Larry David, and Bill Hader returned to host, so did both established and rising celebrities, including Ryan Gosling, Amy Schumer, Donald Glover, Kumail Nanjiani, Gal Gadot, Sam Rockwell, and Sterling K. Brown. Over more than 20 episodes, the show aired dozens of live sketches and previously taped pieces. As is always the case, some of those segments became instant audience favorites, while others are memorable for being, well, not so well-received or hilarious. Here are our picks for the five best bits of the season and the five not-so-best bits of the seasons.

The conceit here is a rap video called "The Baby Step" by four rappers—Soft Spot (Pete Davidson), Heavy Diaper (Chris Redd), One-Z (Kenan Thompson), and Baby Snatch (musical guest Miley Cyrus). They do a little dance of a couple of tentative footsteps also called "The Baby Step" as they hang out in a giant playground, sit in giant gold strollers, and thrust their diaper-clad bodies into the camera. All the boasting and awkward mixture of toddler tropes and hip-hop cliches come to a stop every now and then to cut to episode host Larry David in his dressing room, adamantly refusing to participate in such a ridiculous and demeaning project. In the end, David shows up on the video set to chastise everyone involved, appalled that Thompson is wearing a diaper, and calling Chris Redd "Carl." Just because a bad sketch is aware that it is a bad sketch doesn't make it any less of a bad sketch. 

Bigfoots are huge, goofy monsters that probably aren't real, but they can be a really good source of comedy, as Harry and the Hendersons and Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny have explored. Maybe they're friendly or misunderstood gentle giants. Or, maybe, they're aggressive, macho monsters who live in the woods and want to humiliate and assault humans for no reason. That's the premise of "Sasquatch." A group of young adults are having a marshmallow roast on their campground campfire when they hear a rustling in the woods. Randy (Mikey Day) investigates, and he finds himself face-to-face with a Bigfoot, aka a Sasquatch. His friend Matt (host Sterling K. Brown), a self-styled expert on creatures because he watches "a lot of Monkey Manner on Discovery," councils Randy on how to behave so as to not upset the beast. It all backfires, as the Sasquatch savagely beats up Randy, when he isn't doing things like peeing on Randy's hat and making him wear it. There's no story or much clever humor here, just lots and lots of violence.

With the popularity of Stranger Things only growing after the release of its second season in late 2017, it was inevitable that SNL would take on the Netflix retro-horror phenomenon, and especially when Natalie Portman hosted—the Oscar-winning actress bears an uncanny resemblance to Millie Bobby Brown, the actress who plays the supernaturally gifted "Eleven" on the series. There's a lot to poke fun at in Stranger Things, which makes this "preview of Stranger Things 3" feel like a wasted opportunity. The premise: Eleven meets a bunch of other refugees of experimental laboratories, all who have a power like hers, and a subsequent physical side effect. Eleven is telekinetic and gets a bloody nose after she uses that ability, so this sketch parades out one young mutant after another, each stating their numbers, powers, and the strange things their bodies do to compensate. For example, "14" (Beck Bennett) is pyrokinetic but throws up a little in his mouth, and "9" (Cecily Strong) reads minds but it makes her fart. Except for Leslie Jones interrupting to boast about actually being "50" and having good credit—and lots more farting from "9"—that's about the whole sketch.

In the monologue of his season-opening episode of SNL, guest host Ryan Gosling jokingly boasts about how he personally "saved jazz" via his role as a crusading jazz musician in the hit movie La La Land. In a sketch later in the night, Gosling nearly sent jazz right back to the death watch. This scene about a jazz trio playing in front of a tiny TV on a sports bar's wall just before a big game follows the nomadic, experimental rhythms of jazz, but when that sensibility is applied to comedy, it evidently results in a mess instead of something dazzling and innovative. For example, despite bursting into nonsensical, brief jazz numbers, the band leader (Kenan Thompson) keeps referring to Gosling's flautist playing a "rock 'n' roll flute." Then there are some exchanges about both men dealing with some silly relationship drama. Then Gosling's character gets a phone call regarding a burglary in process at the home he shares with his bandmate. It doesn't make much sense, and while few jokes in the piece truly land, Gosling still distractingly laughs almost constantly, whether he's saying his lines, playing his flute, or just standing there.

The lowest form of comedy just might be the "pain to the male genitals" form of comedy. America's Funniest Home Videos has been on the air for almost 30 years, built on a solid foundation of dads getting bonked in the beans with baseballs, which is funny if you find physical pain done unto others funny or if you're a guy and you want to cringe a little. It's simple humor and doesn't say much other than "haha, that guy got hit in the crotch." This SNL sketch is basically that, but put into words and stretched into four and a half minutes. Aidy Bryant and host Chadwick Boseman play researchers for the Fertility Frontiers Project, holding a press conference to introduce Dan Mattson (Mikey Day), the world's first pregnant man. After a tired joke about pregnancy cravings, reporters—and Dan—learn that the scheduled C-section is off the table, and that Dan will have to give birth naturally, through his urethra, i.e., his "pee-hole." The rest of the sketch is just detailing in excruciatingly graphic detail about how Dan has to give birth through his ding-dong, how it's going to hurt, and how he does not like how it's going to hurt. Ouch!