Throughout "Saturday Night Live"'s history, the show has featured short films from a wide range of comedy filmmakers, both unknown and revered. Filmmakers like Albert Brooks, Christopher Guest, and Adam McKay had regular slots to make shorts on the show before they became successful feature directors. Famed filmmakers like Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Noah Baumbach have swooped in to direct one-offs for the show after establishing themselves already in Hollywood. The show has also featured animated shorts from the likes of Robert Smigel and Mike Judge. Many feature films have developed from shorts that aired on "SNL", including "Office Space", "A Mighty Wind", "Bob Roberts", and "Harold". The short film slot eventually evolved into the SNL Digital Short slot on the show, when Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone arrived at the show in 2005.
History.
Origins.
In 1974, when Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol were developing "Saturday Night Live", they asked comedian Albert Brooks to be the permanent host. He turned the job down and instead suggested he make short films for the show, having recently made his first show, called "Albert Brooks' Famous School For Comedians." They agreed, and Brooks was the first person hired to "SNL", agreeing to write and direct a new short film for the show every week. Penelope Spheeris produced and served as a director of photography on Brooks's short films, and Monica Johnson and Harry Shearer collaborated with Brooks on most of them. Michaels wanted the films to be three minutes, Brooks wanted them to be five, so they came to an agreement that they would be three-to-five minutes. For the third episode, which was hosted by his friend Rob Reiner, Brooks submitted a 13-minute short, which Michaels refused to air until Reiner insisted that it be shown. The film was so long that it necessitated a commercial break in the middle, thus taking the audience away from the live show for 20 minutes. Michaels and Brooks continued to have conflict over the length of the films, and Brooks felt his films were resented by the "SNL" team and felt distant from them, being the only person working on the show living in LA. He left "SNL" with bitterness in early 1976. Spheeris tried pitching scripts for her own short films to Michaels, but he turned her down.
Michaels's friend Gary Weis, who had worked with him on a series of Lily Tomlin specials, replaced Brooks as the show's official filmmaker. His short films varied wildly from Brooks's, they were often documentaries and mood pieces. Also in 1976, the show put out a series of calls for "home movies" during the show, asking viewers to send comedy videos for no compensation. These segments aired on the show, labeled "home movies." Walter Williams sent in a Claymation video called "Mr. Bill", which became a wildly popular segment, running on the show through 1981 and spinning off a TV movie and a series of videos.
Starting with the third season, "SNL" writer Tom Schiller gradually took over the title of house filmmaker from Weis, who had become busy in Los Angeles making features. Schiller's short films, which aired under the titles "Schiller's Reel" and "Schillervision," were often cinematic parodies. His most famous pieces were "La Dolce Gilda," a "La Dolce Vita" parody starring Gilda Radner, and "Don't Look Back In Anger," which ironically starred John Belushi as an elderly version of himself and the last living "SNL" cast member visiting and dancing on the rest of the cast's graves. Schiller left the show along with the original cast and writers at the end of the fifth season.
1980s.
When Jean Doumanian took over the show in the 1980–81 season, she hired Mitchell Kriegman to the resident filmmaker position, only to fire him after five shows. Doumanian also began licensing short films and music videos from different directors that were not made for the show, airing them under the label "Shorts Shots." "Taxi" star Andy Kaufman pitched Doumanian on making a weekly short film for the show in 1980, and she turned him down. In 1981, Dick Ebersol assumed showrunner duties and commissioned one last "Mr. Bill" short and a series Andy Warhol written, directed by, and starring Andy Warhol called "Andy Warhol's T.V." Following that, Ebersol put out another call for "home movies." A few aired before he began to play short films on the show less frequently.
When Christopher Guest arrived in the 1984-1985 season, he wrote and directed a series of shorts, as well as voicing the title character in Jack Zander's animated series "Tippi Turtle."
Lorne Michaels returned to the show in the 1985-86 season. There were no short films that season because Michaels told the press that he intended to center the show more on live rather thn pretaped material after the previous season's abundance of live and animated films. In the following season, he hired his old friend, British filmmaker John Head, to be in charge of film acquisitions on the show. Head served in this position for two seasons, seeking out and obtaining the rights to short films that were made independently of the show from directors like Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins, and Douglas McGrath. Tom Schiller returned to the show as resident filmmaker in the 1988 season, making a new batch of "Schiller's Reel" videos featuring the cast. In 1993, he began segment directing regular segments for the show written by others instead of his own "Schiller's Reel" pieces, and he departed the show in 1995 amidst another mass overhaul of the cast and crew.
1990s.
In 1993, cast member David Spade introduced Michaels to "Beavis and Butt-head" creator Mike Judge. Michaels commissioned Judge to make a series of shorts for the show. He wrote, directed, and voiced three animated shorts about a put-upon office drone named Milton, which eventually became the movie "Office Space". After "Kids in the Hall" ended, Bruce McCulloch served as "SNL"'s resident filmmaker for the 1994-95 season, getting two films to air before departing.
In 1996, writer Robert Smigel returned to the show to make a weekly cartoon for the show in the series "TV Funhouse." Notable "TV Funhouse" segments include "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," "Fun with Real Audio," and "The X-Presidents." "TV Funhouse" was adapted into a short-lived Comedy Central show in 2000, and the series of shorts ran regularly on "SNL" from 1996 to 2007 until they were discontinued due to budget cuts.
When Adam McKay stepped down as head writer in 1999, he pitched Lorne Michaels on letting him make short films for the show. He was given a budget to make a series of films that featured the cast and actors like Ben Stiller and Steve Buscemi. For the films in his first season, he shot on 16mm film, but for his second season, he shot them on digital, making the first "SNL" digital shorts.
2000s.
In 2000, a pre-"Jackass" Johnny Knoxville was offered a regular slot to make videos on the show after "SNL" producers saw his "Self Defense" video made for the skateboarding magazine "Big Brother". Knoxville turned the opportunity down in order ot focus on getting the "Jackass" MTV show on the air.
When the sketch group The Lonely Island, consisting of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer joined "SNL" in the 2005-06 season, they began writing and directing short films labeled "SNL Digital Short." They had a massive breakout hit with their second video, "Lazy Sunday," and the shorts became a regular part of the show for the rest of Samberg's tenure as a cast member. Notable Digital Shorts, include "Dick in a Box," "I'm On A Boat," "Natalie's Rap," the "Laser Cats" series, and "Jizz In My Pants." The Lonely Island has returned sporadically over the years to make new Digital Shorts, most recently in 2024.
Since The Lonely Island departed the show, "SNL" hasn't had a resident writer/director. Kyle Mooney, Mike O'Brien, Please Don't Destroy, writer Dan Bulla, have each had runs of digital shorts they've written and/or starred in on the show, but none of them have directed these films. Their digital shorts are always directed by the show's segment directors.
List of short films.
The following is a list of short films that aired on "SNL", organized by the date in which they first aired.