Ranking the 25 best SNL Digital Shorts, including I'm on a Boat and Lazy Sunday

In 2006, Saturday Night Live cast members Will Forte and Andy Samberg appeared in a very surreal sketch about one guy consoling another on a stoop while both munched on two giant heads of lettuce.

“Lettuce” officially christened the SNL Digital Short, a format that a couple of weeks later would become immortal in the show’s history when Samberg called up fellow cast member Chris Parnell on a lazy Sunday about seeing the new Chronicles of Narnia film and getting some snacks beforehand.

“Lazy Sunday” (and later, one certain sketch where Samberg and Justin Timberlake did something very naughty with Christmas boxes) helped redefine what SNL was in the 2000s as the show learned to embrace the rising tide of internet culture. The SNL Digital Short remains a strong pillar of the show’s 21st-century success and gave us the genius of The Lonely Island.

Samberg and his collaborators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone were behind most all of the SNL Digital Shorts, and their legacy on the sketch comedy series was cemented when that first “An SNL Digital Short” title card came.

The wonder of one of their shorts was, truly, you never knew what they were going to do, or who might pop up as a special guest star … or how many times you would catch yourself humming the song along in the car in the weeks to follow the initial air date.

Most of these SNL Digital Shorts are still cultural mainstays and are fondly remembered by those who caught them live or those who discovered them on YouTube a few years later. As SNL celebrates its 50th season, we’ve ranked the 25 best SNL Digital Shorts. Long live The Lonely Island!

Warning: A lot of NSFW videos below