SNL Digital Shorts
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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]
Though not the first filmed shorts presented on SNL, Digital Shorts are a series of shorts specified by their digital creation, as stated above, as well as having the same crew members behind the filming of each Digital Short. 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. It is usual for the episode's hosts and musical guests (the latter on rare occasions) to take part in the episode's short, and several shorts have included celebrity cameos.
The short "Lazy Sunday," which aired December 17, 2005, was viewed more than five million times on YouTube alone before it was removed due to 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 28 million times on YouTube. It was available uncut on YouTube with a special warning, stating that the sketch contained explicit language that was censored from the television version. The short also won an Emmy award.
Contents |
[edit] List of shorts
[edit] 2005-2006: Season 31
| 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. |
| 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 endlessly about a restaurant he visited, and becomes so involved in the story, he fails to notice that he is discovered by talent scouts (Bill Hader, Parnell), stars in a movie with Scarlett Johansson, becomes a national phenomenon and then loses it all. Brian Williams and Conan O'Brien also make cameos. |
| 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. |
| Natalie Raps | 4 March 2006 | Natalie Portman is interviewed about her life and responds with a rap proving she is a "badass bitch", poking fun at her clean and intellectual image. |
| 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 SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels their new ultra low-budget Digital Short, Laser Cats! The short within the short features the fallout of a nuclear war, in which cats can shoot lasers from their mouths and thus be used as weapons. Hader and Samberg, shooting the short in the SNL offices and playing the heroes, Nitro and Admiral Spaceship, have to rescue a princess (Lindsay Lohan, who is not in on the joke). |
| Ariel & Efrim | 6 May 2006 | Friends in the early 1990s (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. |
[edit] 2006-2007: Season 32
| Title | Original airdate | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| Dick in a Box[3] (censored, uncensored) |
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,in a style reminiscent of early 1990s R&B sex ballads made popular by acts like Bel Biv Devoe, Color Me Badd, and R. Kelly. Won a Creative Arts Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Music and Lyrics in 2007. |
| 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 Laser Cats! 2, based on the same premise, but now it was the Iraq War that had gone nuclear and caused the feline mutations. This time, Dr. Scientist (Jake Gyllenhaal) has stolen the cure that turns Laser Cats back into regular cats. |
| Nurse Nancy | 20 January 2007 | Scott Garbaciak (Samberg) is the multi-role star of the fictional film, Nurse Nancy, in parody of Eddie Murphy films such as Norbit and The Nutty Professor. |
| Body Fuzion [4] | 3 February 2007 | Drew Barrymore is Desiree, host of a 1986 sexually suggestive, low-impact, high-result exercise video Body Fuzion, with "her friends" Donna, Michelle, and Donna M. (Rudolph, Wiig, and Poehler respectively). |
| 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, and hears suggestions from an increasingly bizarre set of employees, including a gigantic turkey sub and Arcade Fire. |
| The Shooting | 14 April 2007 | In a spoof of The O.C. episode "The Dearly Beloved", a man (Hader) writes a letter to his sister, he is shot by his friend (Samberg), leading to a series of overly-dramatic, slow-motion shootings set to "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap, including their roommate (Shia LaBeouf), the sister (Wiig), and two police officers (Sudeikis, Armisen). |
| Roy Rules! | 21 April 2007 | Samberg performs a (somewhat inappropriate) rhyme about how much he likes his brother in-law named Roy (SNL writer Brian Tucker). |
| Talking Dog | 19 May 2007 | While meeting the owner of an apartment he's about to rent (Zach Braff), a man (Samberg) is shocked to find out that the owner's dog can not only talk (with the voice of SNL writer Jorma Taccone), but has fallen in love with him. |
[edit] 2007-2008: Season 33
| Title | Original airdate | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Iran So Far | September, 29 2007 | Samberg sings a love song for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Armisen), along with Adam Levine, sampling "Avril 14th" by Aphex Twin. Jake Gyllenhaal has a cameo. |
| Andy Punches | 13 October 2007 | Samberg punches people before they get to eat then gleefully dancing afterwards; victims include Will Forte, host Jon Bon Jovi, and Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. The short shares the style of Andy Popping Into Frame. |
| A Day in the Life of Brian Williams | 3 November 2007 | Brian Williams describes a day in his life, including watching footage of himself, meditating while the disembodied head of Bono praises him, and dropping pennies on Al Roker and Matt Lauer from the NBC building. |
| Grandkids in the Movies | 23 February 2008 | An old man presents films which have his grandsons (Hader and Samberg) digitally inserted in order to help old people be more comfortable with today's films. |
| The Mirror | 1 March 2008 | A girl (Ellen Page) wakes up from a nightmare and begins seeing a zombie (Samberg) in her bathroom mirror, which turns out to be the nightmare of the zombie, a wolf man (Forte), and a woman named Debbie (Wiig) married to Dracula (Sudeikis). |
| Hero Song | 8 March 2008 | An apparently wealthy man (Samberg) sings about crime infecting the city, then turns into a superhero (a la Batman) and tries to save a woman (Amy Adams) from being mugged, only to have the mugger (Sudeikis) beat up the superhero. |
| Andy's Dad | 15 March 2008 | Jonah Hill confesses to Samberg about how he has fallen in love with his father, Ben Samberg (played by longtime SNL writer Jim Downey). Hader also confesses the same thing. |
| Laser Cats! 3D | 5 April 2008 | Samberg and Hader attempt to pitch Laser Cats to Lorne again, this time with a scene enhanced by 3D glasses. The plot revolves around a ban on all laser cats and a battle against the corrupt Mayor Top-Hat (Thompson). Christopher Walken appears as the general and Christopher Dodd cameos as himself (watching the short while having dinner with Lorne). |
| Daiquiri Girl | 12 April 2008 | Samberg appears in an amateur, early-90s music video about a girl who loves to drink daiquiris. Meanwhile, text scrolls up the screen explaining that the producers apologize for airing the video because a certain musical guest (Gnarls Barkley) failed to appear for the shooting of a digital short, despite an agreement to do otherwise. |
| The Best Look in the World | 10 May 2008 | Samberg and host Shia LaBeouf sing a high-energy country song about Samberg's new dress shirt, black socks, no pants look (the best look in the world). |
| Japanese Office | 17 May 2008 | Ricky Gervais presents a clip from a Japanese show that was his inspiration for The Office, featuring Japanese versions of Michael (Steve Carell), Dwight (Hader), Jim (Sudeikis), Pam (Wiig), and Stanley (Thompson). Also, Darrel Hammond plays Regis Philbin in a tampon commercial. At the end of the episode, Gervais commented, "It's funny 'cause it's racist". |
[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. First shown during the Antonio Banderas dress rehearsal. It was shown again during the remaining rehearsals of the season. |
| Gawker Hopefuls | 28 October 2006 | Samberg and Armisen attempt to get noticed by Gawker.com. It was only shown during the Hugh Laurie Dress Rehearsal. |
[edit] Other Lonely Island shorts on SNL
Produced by The Lonely Island,[5][6] and/or labeled Digital Shorts on official YouTube postings, these shorts aired on an SNL episode but not with the official SNL Digital Short title card. As with the Digital Shorts, these are directed by Akiva Schaffer. However, according to the official LonelyIsland website, the MacGruber shorts are directed by Jorma Taccone
| 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 (Parts 1, 2, and 3) | 20 January 2007 | In three parodies of MacGyver, the titular hero (Forte) demands odd objects of his disgusted sidekicks (Jeremy Piven, Rudolph) in order to stop catastrophic events that are mere seconds away. |
| 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 be a mentor to kids, but ends up being physically, mentally, and verbally abusive to them (a parody of his public service announcements for the United Way during 2001–2005). |
| MacGruber 2 | 12 May 2007 | In three more segments, the titular hero (Forte), after 15 years of sobriety, begins drinking just as his sidekicks (Molly Shannon, Rudolph) need his bomb-defusing skills most. MacGruber's behavior evolves into a parody of David Hasselhoff's hangover video. |
| MacGruber 3 | 6 October 2007 | In three more segments, the titular hero (Forte) becomes obsessed with his recent plastic surgeries just as his sidekicks (Seth Rogen, Rudolph) need his bomb-defusing skills most. |
| Virgania Horsen's Hot Air Balloon Rides | 23 February 2008 | A fake commercial about a woman (Kristen Wiig) offering free hot air balloon rides to combat the long lines and intrusive searches at airports. There was a 2nd part to this commercial but it was cut for time. Horsen flies over New York and Montreal in the video. |
| MacGruber 4 | 15 March 2008 | MacGruber (Forte) feels insecure when his assistant (Jonah Hill) says that he cannot do his job when he and Vicky (Wiig) need his bomb-defusing skills the most. Only two segments aired. |
| MacGruber 5 | 10 May 2008 | MacGruber and his son, Merrill (Shia LaBeouf), team up together. However, in the process of escaping, Merrill inadvertently confesses that he's gay (by showing anal lubricant, a dildo, and his boyfriend Scott (Samberg) leaving MacGruber to make him straight again by reciting Bible verses and forcing him to kiss Vicky (Wiig). |
[edit] Notable shorts
[edit] The Shooting
The Shooting, also known as Dear Sister,[7] is an infamous short that was broadcast during an episode aired April 14, 2007. The episode was hosted by actor Shia LaBeouf, who took part in the sketch along with members of the Saturday Night Live cast. The short satirizes the final scene of The O.C.'s second-season finale.[8][9]
[edit] Expanded plot
Keith (Bill Hader) writes a letter to his sister, as Dave (Andy Samberg) asks what he is doing. As Keith responds, explaining he hasn't seen his sister in a long time, Dave suddenly and inexplicably shoots him. In the following overly-dramatic, slow-motion death overdubbed by a cue of "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap, Dave is seen visibly shaken as Keith, in shock, collapses. As Dave gathers his bearings, Keith suddenly shoots him in return, having recovered from his injury long enough to exact his revenge to the same music cue.
After both men have fallen to the ground from their separate shootings, another man, Eric (Shia LaBeouf), enters looking for them (saying he's "just thought of the funniest thing"). Dave comes back to life to shoot Eric, who collapses, once again to the same music. The sister herself (Kristen Wiig) enters the scene, and begins to read the letter until she too is shot several times by each of the three men on the ground, with the music cue restarting with every shot, until she collapses too. She ends up being shot 17 times, total.
The short ends as two police officers (Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen) are observing the crime scene. One finds the letter, left on the table near the brother's body, and begins to read. The letter is revealed to be a prediction of each shooting, in detail, and ends claiming that two police officers will come across the letter and then shoot each other after reading it. Laughing it off, the reading officer turns to his partner, and they immediately shoot each other to overlapping "Hide & Seek" cues.
[edit] The letter
The "Dear Sister" letter itself, as transcribed from the short. It is read towards the end of the video, by one of the two police officers.
Dear Sister,
By the time you read this, I'll be dead. This is how I think it's gonna happen: Dave will shoot me, then I'll shoot Dave, then Eric will enter and get shot by Dave. Then you'll come in and get shot by Eric, Dave and I multiple times.
Love, your brother Keith
ps - Then two cops will read this letter and shoot each other.
[edit] Controversy
[edit] Virginia Tech shootings
Due to music clearance issues,[8] the NBC network, which broadcasts Saturday Night Live and distributes clips, did not release The Shooting on its official site or YouTube immediately following broadcast. On April 16, 2007, two days following the initial air date of the sketch, the Virginia Tech shootings occurred. The massacre, which took place on the Virginia Tech campus of Blacksburg, Virginia, saw 32 people killed and 25 more wounded by the actions of Seung-Hui Cho[10] before he himself committed suicide, making it the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history.[11][12] The sketch, viewed under this new context, was considered to be in bad taste and suffer from poor timing following the shootings,[13] and perhaps as a result, NBC never uploaded the clip to YouTube or its official site.[13] The short finally reappeared four months later, in a repeat of the LaBeouf episode, aired August 4, 2007[14]
[edit] Spin-offs
Despite the initial attempts of NBC to enforce copyright protection and remove access to the sketch on YouTube and similar viral video sites, viewers uploaded the short even after the videos were removed several times at NBC's request. Despite these obstacles, the short became popular enough to beget a wave of re-enactments and parodies using the same use of "Hide and Seek" and slow-motion to violent scenes. Among the different parodies were not only shooting scenes from many movies and television shows, but actual news events, including the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the Virginia Tech shootings themselves.
[edit] References
- ^ Itzkoff, Dave. "Nerds in the Hood, Stars on the Web", New York Times, 2005-12-27.
- ^ Featured as an Easter egg on the two-disc DVD of V for Vendetta.
- ^ 2007 Emmy Awards Winner for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.
- ^ In the original broadcast, the short was a full-screen image within Saturday Night Live's widescreen presentation, causing the video to be surrounded by black bars. NBC later posted a second, cropped version on YouTube to remove these bars. This version contained an alternate ending in which Body Fuzion was viewed by the characters in the film The Ring.
- ^ Tam, Chester (2006-12-10). The Lonely Island's Chez-Chat: Apocalypto Re-cut.
- ^ Tam, Chester (2007-03-26). Peyton Manning SNL Digital Short "United Way".
- ^ The short was originally unofficially known as Dear Sister on YouTube when it was first uploaded. However, a blog post from the official website of Andy Samberg and Digital Shorts director Akiva Schaffer claimed the title to be The Shooting instead. This was regarded by many to signify the official title, until an NBC recap of the episode listed the short as Dear Sister. See NBC recap.
- ^ a b Tam, Chester (2007-04-15). SNL Digital Short - The Shooting. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.
- ^ "SNL Digital Short inspired by the O.C."
- ^ "Tech shooting victims: Moving forward", Roanoke Times, 2007-05-07. Retrieved on 2007-05-08.
- ^ Allen G. Breed. "Va.Tech Gunman's Motives Still a Mystery", Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Fact File: Deadliest shootings in the U.S.. MSNBC. Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
- ^ a b Clayton, Corey (2007-04-16). SNL short a lot less funny due to Virginia Tech shootings. Hard Drive Life. Retrieved on 2007-04-19.
- ^ Cohen, Noam (2007-05-07). Taking Violence to a New, Technological Absurdity. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-05-07.
