Saturday Night Live/SNL Digital Short

SNL Digital Short Saturday Night Live
Actor(s)	Andy Samberg, et al.
Creator(s)	Akiva Schaffer Jorma Taccone Andy Samberg
First Appearance	31x07 - Dane Cook/James Blunt
Last Appearance	34x02 - James Franco/Kings of Leon
Episode Count	36 (2 unaired)

A SNL Digital Short is a pre-taped video written by Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg in collaboration with guest stars and occasionally the host for the episode.

Basic Information

The genesis for SNL Digital Shorts began in 2001 when Schaffer, Taccone and Samberg reconnected with each other to form The Lonely Island, a website that housed their various comic short film projects. The Lonely Island shorts are similar in style to the SNL Digital Shorts, but differ in that they're typically far more surreal and unusual. These shorts vary wildly between simple misdirection comedy and music video parodies. The Lonely Island became wildly popular on the internet due in part to broadcast on the internet television station Channel 101. This lead them to hire an agent for work in television.

After both FOX and MTV passed on a pilot called Awesometown, written by the three as a sketch comedy series, Schaffer, Taccone and Samberg were hired by Saturday Night Live for their 31st season. Although Samberg was the only one of the three to be hired as a performer, their employment was primarily based on the strength of their short films.

On December 3, 2005, the first digital short, "Lettuce" aired featuring Samberg and Will Forte taking bites out of heads of lettuce while talking about the death of a loved one. Audience reaction was positive, but it wasn't until the next short that the films became truly popular. The follow-up film, "Lazy Sunday," aired on December 16 and exploded in popularity on the internet. The video featured Samberg and Chris Parnell rapping about buying cupcakes and plotting a map so that they could see a matinée of The Chronicles of Narnia. Before it was removed from YouTube on the basis of copyright infringement, had garnered over 5 million hits.

The internet buzz behind "Lazy Sunday" coupled with NBC's attempts to find a point of compromise with digital media caused the network to attempt to capitalize off the online popularity of the shorts by hosting the on their own website, as well as on YouTube. Following "Lazy Sunday," the SNL Digital Shorts became a phenomenon that had similar success with "A Special Christmas Box," featuring Samberg and host Justin Timberlake, which was used as an unofficial radio single for Timberlake after it was aired on television.

Appearances

1. 31x07 - Dane Cook/James Blunt: "Lettuce."
2. 31x08 - Jack Black/Neil Young: "Lazy Sunday."
3. 31x11 - Peter Sarsgaard/The Strokes: "Young Chuck Norris."
4. 31x12 - Steve Martin/Prince: "Two Inches." Two old friends (Martin and Forte) converse two inches away from each other's faces.
5. 31x12 - Steve Martin/Prince: "The Tangent." Joel (Armisen) has a long conversation with no one in particular, leading him to be cast in a movie and put on a press tour. When the movie ultimately bombs in the box office, he's put back where he was found and has no realization of what happened.
6. 31x13 - Natalie Portman/Fall Out Boy: "A Day in the Life of Natalie Portman."
7. 31x14 - Matt Dillon/Arctic Monkeys: "Doppelgänger."
8. 31x16 - Lindsay Lohan/Pearl Jam: "Laser Cats!"
9. 31x17 - Tom Hanks/Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Ariel & Efrim."
10. 31x18 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus/Paul Simon: "Peyote."
11. 31x19 - Kevin Spacey/Nelly Furtado: "Andy Walking."
12. 32x01 - Dane Cook/The Killers: "Cubicle Fight."
13. 32x03 - John C. Reilly/My Chemical Romance: "Harpoon Man."
14. 32x08 - Annette Bening/Gwen Stefani & Akon: "Pep Talk."
15. 32x09 - Justin Timberlake (2): "A Special Christmas Box."
16. 32x10 - Jake Gyllenhaal/The Shins: "Laser Cats! 2."
17. 32x11 - Jeremy Piven/AFI: "Nurse Nancy."
18. 32x12 - Drew Barrymore/Lily Allen: "Body Fuzion."
19. 32x13 - Forest Whitaker/Keith Urban: "Andy Popping Into Frame." Samberg is shown in a variety of scenes popping into the frame suddenly. This continues until Forte attempts to get in on the sketch, but is forced out by Samberg with a hand gun.
20. 32x14 - Rainn Wilson/Arcade Fire: "Corporate Headquarters." Wilson goes around the room for suggestions on how to deal with the budget. The executives get progressively stranger until Wilson gets a call and the building they're in implodes.
21. 32x18 - Scarlett Johansson/Björk: "Roy Rules." Samberg sings an increasingly perverse song about his brother-in-law, Roy, and how much he wants to sleep with him.
22. 33x01 - LeBron James/Kanye West: "Iran So Far." Samberg sings a ballad about how much he loves Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his short stay in New York City for a UN conference. It also features Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and Jake Gyllenhaal.
23. 33x03 - Jon Bon Jovi/Foo Fighters: "People Getting Punched Right Before Eating." Samberg punches people right before they take a bite of their food, including Jason Sudeikis, Jon Bon Jovi, Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl and Will Forte (who he winds up murdering when he fights back). He punches Fred Armisen, but he turns out to be a zombie that chases him around the world until they dance for no apparent reason.
24. 33x04 - Brian Williams/Feist: "Brian Diaries." Host Brian Williams takes the viewer through an average day as the anchor for NBC Nightly News, which mainly consists of smug self-satisfaction and imagining Bono saying that Williams is much cooler than he is.
25. 33x05 - Tina Fey/Carrie Underwood: "A Message for Old People." An old man sells DVDs of recently released movies, except with his grandsons super-imposed into the films to make him feel more comfortable watching it. They warn him when it's getting too complicated, when the phone's ringing in the movie and not in his home, what characters are saying when they're using slang and generally waving to him.
26. 33x06 - Ellen Page/Wilco: "The Mirror."
27. 33x07 - Amy Adams/Vampire Weekend: "Hero Song."
28. 33x08 - Jonah Hill/Mariah Carey: "Andy's Dad."
29. 33x09 - Christopher Walken/Panic at the Disco: "Daiquiri Girl."
30. 33x10 - Ashton Kutcher/Gnarls Barkley: "Laser Cats! 3D."
31. 33x11 - Shia LaBeouf/My Morning Jacket: "The Best Look in the World."
32. 33x12 - Steve Carell/Usher: "The Japanese Office."
33. 34x01 - Michael Phelps/Lil Wayne: "Space Olympics."
34. 34x02 - James Franco/Kings of Leon: "Murray Hill."

Additionally, there are two shorts that have been filmed but have not been aired in any episodes, the listed episode is the episode in which it aired during the dress rehearsal. It is unknown as to whether or not they will be recycled for future broadcasts:

1. 31x15 - Antonio Banderas/Mary J. Blige: "Lobster Cop."
2. 32x04 - Hugh Laurie/Beck: "Gawker Hopefuls."

External Sites

• The Lonely Island - Early work by the creators of the SNL Digital Shorts.