Saturday Night Live's Digital Shorts represent a branching out of TV into digital content. It features a lot of SNL talent at times, but also the talent of the Lonely Island, in brief skits that last a few minutes at most. These shorts aren’t live, like the majority of SNL’s skits, but instead, they take the form of short-form YouTube skits. In many ways, the series is a time capsule for a lot of the humor of their time and, more specifically, of the comedy show's most prolific alumni. You can see a pre-Barry Bill Hader and a pre-Brooklyn Nine-Nine Andy Samberg. Indeed, if you like Samberg's SNL work in particular, then you'll enjoy the digital shorts.
Overall, the collection has some stand-out videos that were part of the cultural zeitgeist of memes and humor at the time. At the same time, it also has some stand-out videos you may not have seen or remember, even if you were around at the time. This list seeks to shed light on the SNL digital shorts you may not remember while also celebrating those you probably do.
12 Tennis Balls
Tennis Balls is a good introduction to what the Samberg's SNL Digital Shorts are all about. While not as famous as his Lonely Island digital shorts, this short has all the Samberg hallmarks: random absurdist humor, a ridiculous premise that's a springboard for absurdity, and a generally fun immaturity. This sketch about tennis balls being propelled into a man's groin repeatedly is pretty straightforward, but how the situation escalates is where the sketch really shines. This sketch is simple, and the most fun comes in seeing a tennis ball hit Jonah Hill in the groin repeatedly from a high-speed serving machine.
11 United Way
This one's rather different from the others as it doesn't directly relate to the Lonely Island, instead using the star power of legendary once Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. This skit is wonderful for giving us the image of Manning pelting children with footballs. United Way, which you can watch on YouTube, is a decidedly irreverent skit that would have been infinitely less funny if it was just someone doing an impression of Manning, but the fact that he is in the skit makes it feel as if he's in on the joke. Manning himself, unlike many other sports stars who have had to deliver dialogue, is a pretty natural comedic actor and really carries the sketch. The takeaway is that one of the best ways to make an SNL digital short funny is to pelt someone with a ball.
10 Sloths!
Sloths! and the subsequent Giraffes! are both songs by the Lonely Island for the SNL digital shorts. Both are very absurd and loud songs that commit to a specific gag or bit, which is pretty typical for a Lonely Island song. Both songs are about how the animal in question is more hardcore and intense than is stereotypically expected of them. What these two songs do that make them interesting is that they integrate real world facts into the comedy, like the fact that sloths sleep 18 hours a day and the fact they hunt in packs, though the sloth video does this more than the giraffe one.
9 People Getting Punched Right Before Eating
This sketch builds itself upon Samberg's ability to run with a joke. The joke itself is immature, but the execution of the joke is well done, and the twists it goes through are so random and out of left field that it works despite the fact that the joke itself is very one-dimensional. What's more, the joke itself is told mostly without any dialogue, although there is a lot of text that comes across the scene. This sketch isn't one of Lonely Island's songs, but it does fit neatly into that body of work because it's similarly absurd and juvenile in the best way.
8 D*** in a Box
One of the SNL skits with Samberg and Justin Timberlake. This is also one of the first sketches that went viral, which a few of the other Lonely Island songs also managed to do in the early internet era. This is one of the time-capsules from an earlier time when it came to memes and online culture. You may find the title familiar even if you haven't listened to it before. The humor in this one is mostly based around the crassness of the idea of the title, mixed with the silliness of the actual video of Samberg and Timberlake making an R&B romance song.
7 The Tizzle Wizzle Show (Jammy Shuffle)
This sketch is the People Getting Punched Right Before Eating sketch, but refined. That one was a little unfocused and didn't commit to its premise as much as it could. This digital short, however, is a lot more concise and specific, and also much darker. Playing upon the subversion of innocence to darkness, which can often be a source of comedy, the sketch has James Franco join a children's show and things go wrong from there. The sketch ends with most of the characters dead and Franco confused and disturbed.
6 Great Day
Great Day has perhaps the most manic energy of all the digital shorts, which is fitting given its subject matter. Like most of the Lonely Island shorts, Great Day combines a comedy song with a video that leans on the acting talents of Samberg to sell its wildly wacky tone. This short also has a similar darker energy that the Tizzle Wizzle sketch also had, dressed up in a happy seeming way. Of course, it's nowhere near as dark as the Jammy Shuffle sketch, but it is proof of the Lonely Island's ability to inject dark comedy into their normally absurdist humor effectively.
5 J*** in my Pants
This short is another Lonely Island song that became a meme. Similar to D*** In A Box it also has an immature premise, though this sketch is even more blunt with its comedy somehow. One of the pluses of the Lonely Island digital shorts is that they convey most of their comedy through song, so even without the video, it would be entertaining, though the videos in the Lonely Island sketches often help enhance the jokes.
4 Like a Boss
Like a Boss, with Samberg and Seth Rogen, takes the usual escalation and random humor of Lonely Island songs and turns it up to 11. This song also became a meme for a while. Like a Boss doesn't so much have a singular consistent premise, rather it's an absurd take on the phrase "like a boss" taken to extreme levels. It's one of the most absurd and immature songs of the digital shorts, and yet it still holds up in some ways. A lot of humor on the internet now is absurdist and inexplicable, yet also based around a single gag taken to it's most extreme. Like a Boss, and a lot of Lonely Island songs, embody this sort of comedy.
3 Threw It On The Ground
Threw It On The Ground is a parody of hipsters by the Lonely Island. This short is similar to D*** In A Box in that it is making fun of a specific sort of person, but Threw It On The Ground has a lot more of that chaotic, random Lonely Island energy than D*** In A Box. Samberg does a very good job conveying the character with his comedic acting, making fun of the character he's portraying. The short also has a surprise cameo from both Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Woods, although unfortunately they don't get any speaking or singing roles. Like most of the Lonely Island songs, you can also listen to it independent of the video. The image of Samberg shouting into the microphone "I'm an Adult!" is a standout.
2 The Shooting AKA Dear Sister
This short is among the best and most famous SNL skits in general, not just among the digital shorts. This short is unique in that it parodies a very specific episode of a TV show: the Season 2 finale of The OC. Despite that, even if you had never watched it, you may have still seen this sketch. It's a funny sketch that's reminiscent of Key and Peele's Mexican Standoff skit, in that it takes a scene from TV, a stock scene in the case of Key and Peele's skit, and embellishes it with a bunch of absurd twists and turns. This sketch is, all in all, simple because it has one joke that they do a variation on throughout the video.
1 Laser Cats
Laser Cats 1 is a good sketch, but the Laser Cats series is what takes the top spot. This series of sketches feels like a fun little project the SNL cast got to do between sketches, emulating all the hallmarks of amateur, for fun films. You have people walking into shot and then walking out again, you have purposely bad ADR, you have the laser cats themselves switching between being stuffed cats and real cats. It manages to emulate all the charm of a movie you might make with some friends when you were young. You get a lot of fun cameos from guest celebrities like Christopher Walken or Steve Martin and SNL regulars like Kenan Thompson. Lorne Micheals also shows up in each episode as the disapproving exec who watches Samberg and Hader's films. The duo that helps to really sell the humor are Hader and Samberg, the two managing to parody buddy cop and action movie tropes while also seeming to have a ton of fun making amateur movies.