Family traditions are a staple around the world for different holidays. Whether it is carving pumpkins on Halloween, or decorating gingerbread houses and Christmas trees for Christmas, traditions will be found in many households across the globe. However, arguably one of the best family traditions is the one my family and I own: watching the Saturday Night Live Thanksgiving Special.
The SNL Thanksgiving Special brings many comical skits, whether it spans from political-themed skits or strictly entertaining skits. Every year, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the SNL Thanksgiving Special will air with popular and loved skits all the way from fifty seasons ago to now. Unfortunately, some skits are duds. The comical value of the skits has lowered over the years due to ‘cancel culture.’ Thankfully, the older skits (which are also much funnier in this reviewer’s opinion) are still aired, as they were produced before the rise of the ‘cancel culture.’. Some of these skits include popular actors and comedians, including Adam Sandler, Kevin Nealon, Bill Hader, and Fred Armisen.
Every year when watching these, fans are always waiting for their favorite skits to light up their television. But what skits should you look out for? The top skits ranked by TvInsider are Adam Sandler’s “Thanksgiving Song” (Second Place), and a “A Thanksgiving Miracle”, (First Place), featuring popular singer Adele and her former hit song “Hello.” What do these skits bring to the Thanksgiving table though? While some skits are awkward, Sandler’s song brings both joy and humor to listeners. Sandler’s song features him singing about eating turkey on “turkey day” and is intermingled with random rhyming verses to bring humor. Finally, the Adele Thanksgiving has a family whose feast is ruined by politics and other controversial topics. All is chaos until a member of the family plays “Hello” on the radio and the whole family goes into a period of recollection and sings Adele’s song in a dramatic fashion.
While TvInsider ranked those as their top three skits, the real top three skits are “Penelope,” featuring Kristen Wiig and Anne Hathaway (Third Place), “Debbie Downer,” featuring Rachel Dratch (Second Place), and “The Californians,” featuring Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and many other popular SNL Actors. These skits bring much more to the Thanksgiving feast than what TvInsider does. At a soup kitchen, Mary (Anne Hathaway) helps serve the less fortunate community and provides Thanksgiving dishes to them. As Mary feels happy for herself by feeding the homeless and poor community, Penelope (Kristen Wiig) feels the need to one-up Mary, which does not sit well with Mary. This starts a back-and-forth conflict between Mary and Penelope trying to one-up each other, where Penelope wins in the end. If it were not for Penelope trying to be perfect, then the skit would have been a dud. Penelope is the real comedy of the skit. Coming in second place is the amazing “Debbie Downer.” The family feast is full of positivity and thankfulness until Debbie has her negative inputs about politics or world problems, such as the “mad cow disease in the U.S.” With “The Californians” taking first place in my heart, this brings a large sense of awkwardness across the whole family, with some mellow reactions to some not-so-mellow events. As hard as it is to understand the family’s awkward situations, we can only comprehend the awkwardness, which makes this skit funny.
Ultimately, while TVInsider has its ranked skits for the common fans, my top three ranking is for the fans who seek to see comedy. Sadly, fans will have to wait until next year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to watch and enjoy the Thanksgiving special, but the wait is worth the while.
