We’ve got a new season of Saturday Night Live here to make us laugh, something the sketch series has been doing well for almost 50 years. It can be political satires, Weekend Update segments, digital shorts or just some of the most off-the-wall things you’ve seen, but a great SNL skit is something you’ll want to watch again and again.
That’s what we’re here to help with, as we’re compiling a running list of the best Saturday Night Live season 48 sketches for you in one place. Check back throughout the year whenever you need to get a laugh.
ManningCast
After losing a number of long-time stalwarts like Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Pete Davidson between seasons, Saturday Night Live decided to lean into the new landscape with a season premiere cold open that poked a lot of fun at itself. Spoofing the popular ManningCast franchise on ESPN, host Miles Teller did a fantastic impression of Peyton Manning while Andrew Dismukes (weird to think he’s now an SNL veteran) was also quite humorous as Eli Manning as they provided analysis of an opening skit.
Some of the best bits were the references to the show’s new cast members, Bowen Yang feeling the pressure and a surprise appearance by Jon Hamm, who made it even more self-referential when he took a shot at his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Teller about them not being able to land one of the movie’s bigger stars to host.
It may end up being a rebuilding year for SNL, but they got things off to a funny start with this one.
Nicole Kidman AMC ad
It can be great when SNL just goes completely off the rails with some of their skits and that’s what happened as they spoofed the Nicole Kidman AMC commercials that we’ve seen recently. With Chloe Fineman impersonating the Oscar winner, the skit starts out pretty normal, but by the end, it appears that movie theaters give Nicole Kidman god-like powers and submit everyone in the theater to her will. It’s strange and almost makes no sense, but damn it if we didn’t laugh.
Send Something Normal
The game show parody is an SNL staple, whether it’s a spoof of an existing game (like the all-time classic Celebrity Jeopardy!) or a completely made-up one (we love Bill Hader and John Mulaney’s (What's That Name). Send Something Normal is riffing on the habit of male celebrities to continuously get themselves into trouble in DMs. It tries to be timely with having Adam Levine (Mikey Day) and Armie Hammer (James Austin Johnson), but the skit really takes off when Kenan’s Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bowen Yang, as himself, get a go.
New Cast Advice
SNL has seemed to be doing a bit more to get its four new cast members some time on the show then usual this year, including Michael Longfello and Marcello Hernandez getting their own segments on Weekend Update an Devon Walker having a featured role in a cold open. However, this pre-filmed sketch was the first true showcase for Molly Kearney.
While the other new cast members offer sincere and humorous selections of their first few weeks of work (or not working, according to Marcello), Molly reveals she was tasked with killing Vladimir Putin. The emotional recounting of the crazy adventure from Lorne was pretty great (if a little long), which then adds a fun stinger about what Kenan had to do when he was new.
Tommy
There’s a long recent history of great SNL digital shorts from Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island comedy group, which has now been taken over by Please Don’t Destroy (Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy). An early season highlight from the group came with host Brendan Gleeson.
The short starts off with the trio and Gleeson looking forward to their senior year of high school, but Gleeson’s Tommy has to tell his friends something — he’s not a senior in high school, he’s a senior citizen who apparently thought high school would be a blast after watching Gossip Girl. It’s hilarious as the curtain is pulled back for the teens on who their friend really. The sketch is silly and simple, but it just works.
Classroom
Ego Nwodim got a spotlight in the Megan Thee Stallion episode, and while Girl Talk and Hot Girl Hospital had their moments, it was the substitute teacher sketch at the very end that stood out as the highlight.
Nwodim enters into the classroom ready to give an impassioned speech about how the students (Megan Thee Stallion, Punkie Johnson and Devon Walker) should believe in themselves because they too can learn and prove anyone who doubted them wrong. Just one problem, the class she is substituting for is an advanced physics class at a STEM school. Nwodim’s uncomfortableness the rest of the sketch is fantastic as she tries to maintain her composure while clearly being the one a bit lost on the subject matter.
Nwodim has been a long time cast member, but this was definitely her episode.
House of the Dragon
House of the Dragon got the SNL treatment when in the Dave Chappelle episode. In an intro of the sketch, Chappelle teased that Queen Rhaenyra is going to be getting some new allies in season 2, many of whom are familiar to fans of Chappelle's career.
First, we got some solid jokes about the Targaryen family tree and how... complicated all the relations are and a surprise return from a not-dead-yet King Viserys, but the stars of the are popular characters from The Chappelle Show. This included a trio from the show's Playa Hater's Ball, Tyronne Biggums and a reframing of Chappelle's classic Rick James impression.
It's a fun combination of some classic characters from Chappelle's career meeting with one of the most popular TV shows of the moment.
Saturday Night Live episodes are available to watch on-demand exclusively on Peacock.
