Videos: The 20 Best Digital Videos From <em>Saturday Night Live</em> Season 39

Ben Yakas

Published May 24, 2014

Modified May 24, 2014

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Ben Yakas

Published May 24, 2014

Modified May 24, 2014

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The recently completed 39th season of Saturday Night Live was always going to be a bit rough. SNL lost too many heavy hitters last season—Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Jason Sudeikis, & Seth Meyers this year—to expect the show to bounce back immediately. Instead, SNL hunkered down for a transitionary year, throwing a bunch of featured players at the wall and hoping some of them would stick.

This plan, of course, didn't work out so well: instead of fresh faces blowing our minds and establishing themselves as the new Eddie Murphys, Will Ferrells & Tina Feys, most of the new cast was underserved this season, with only the Kyle Mooney/Beck Bennett team, and arguably Mike O'Brien, having major time on air. The rest of the new cast had to settle for showing off impressions (Noel Wells), the occasional Weekend Update spot (Brooks Wheelan), perpetual supporting roles (Sasheer Zamata), and um, dance numbers (John Milhiser). And that doesn't even get into the mess that was Colin Jost taking over for Meyers at Weekend Update.

So SNL took a few steps back in terms of star power and live sketches this season (the cold opens have been completely DOA), but there was one area where they excelled as the season wore on: digital shorts. The Lonely Island team left a few years back, taking their Digital Shorts imprint with them, but SNL has been slowly adding more and more pre-taped segments ever since. This season, most of the standout segments of the year were these sketches, which touched on everything from melancholy moods (Monster Pals), to stilted personalities (see: every Moody/Bennett 10-to-1 sketch), to cinematic ambition (parodies of Wes Anderson, Her, and The Beygency all come to mind), outright surrealism (Bird Bible) and actual stories (Dragon Babies).

There were so many great pre-taped segments this season, we actually had a long list of honorable mentions, including: Paul Rudd's One Direction fandom, New Year's Resolutions with Drake, "We Did Stop" with Miley Cyrus, a Girls parody of Adam & Eve, Darth Vader Butt with Louis C.K., The Hit, and Bennett/Moody sketches Chris For President and Super Champions.

Below, check out our 20 favorite digital sketches of the year. And check back for more SNL best of posts this weekend.

Girls with Blerta (Tina Fey):

Boy Dance Party (Bruce Willis):

Sigma Beer Pong (Bruce Willis):

The Midnight Coterie Of Sinister Intruders (Edward Norton):

What Does My Girl Say? (Kerry Washington):

RIP Blockbuster (Lady Gaga):

Subway Dancers (Josh Hutcherson):

Bugs (Josh Hutcherson):

Do It In My Twin Bed (Jimmy Fallon):

Me (Jonah Hill):

Black History Month (Melissa McCarthy):