Saturday Night Live Performers Cracking Up

Saturday Night Live Chris Farley

One of the highlights of Saturday Night Live is seeing performers breaking character because they cannot control their laughter — as long as it does not happen too often. This video montage features cast members from various seasons — going back to the late 1970s — as they crack up. See if you can make it through without laughing.

The term for unscripted giggling is “corpsing,” referring to the fact that the worst time to laugh is when you are playing a corpse. For a discussion of when it is okay for SNL cast members to laugh and when it becomes annoying, check out Slate.

What is your favorite SNL moment where a performer started laughing? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Funny Video of the Week: The Sopranos Diaries

    Sopranos Diaries

    This weekend, Saturday Night Live took the idea of going back in time from The Carrie Diaries and applied it to the HBO series The Sopranos. Check out what happens when we see the cast from The Sopranos during their high school years in The Sopranos Diaries.

    What TV characters would you like to see in high school? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    I Wish It Was Christmas Today

    When Jimmy Fallon hosted Saturday Night Live in 2011, he got together his old gang of Horatio Sanz, Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan to reprise their classic funny performance of their song, “I Wish It Was Christmas Today.” They have made a few versions of the song through the years.

    Here is the original, which I think is from December 2000. From Sanz’s travel guitar, to Fallon’s screw-ups on the organ, to the look on Morgan’s face, it captures four guys having fun and thinking, “I can’t believe we’re doing this on TV.” [December 2013 Update: The original video is no longer available for embedding, but you may watch it here on YouTube.]

    The song has reappeared in several forms through the years since 2000. Sanz again performed the song on Saturday Night Live in 2004 with the Muppets. Another Fallon-Sanz version appeared December 2009 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The performance with the Roots featured a surprise guest appearance by Strokes lead singer Julian Casablancas, who had covered the song. [December 2013 Update: That video is no longer available, so below is a video of Casablancas playing “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” live at one of his concerts.]

    Finally, the new December 2011 version is below. This version is nostalgic instead of adding much new, but it is fun to see the four reprising their roles. The funniest part may be that Morgan and Kattan came back to visit the show for this performance where they do not say a word.

    If you made it through all three versions, good luck in getting the song out of your head now. Happy holidays!

    What’s the funniest part of the performances? Which is your favorite version? Leave your two cents in the comments.


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