SNL Digital Short



An SNL Digital Short is one in a series of comedic and often musical video shorts created for NBC's Saturday Night Live. The origin of the Digital Short brand is credited to staff writer Adam McKay, who created content for the show in collaboration with SNL hosts, writers, and cast members. The popularity of these segments exploded following the addition of The Lonely Island (Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, and Andy Samberg) to the show, and it is to them that credit is given for ushering SNL "into the age of digital online content in a time when it needed to tap into that relevance more than ever." The Lonely Island's digital shorts were originally recorded with consumer grade digital video cameras and edited on personal computers. It is typical for the show's hosts and musical guests to take part in that week's Digital Short (the latter on rarer occasions), and several shorts have included appearances by celebrities who were not scheduled to appear in any of that episode's live sketches.

The shorts generally took fewer than five days to complete. Schaffer has directed a majority of them, with Taccone as occasional director or co-director. Taccone also has produced music for the shorts as necessary, along with his brother, Asa.

Following the departure of Samberg from SNL in 2012, it was speculated that the era of videos branded "An SNL Digital Short" had come to an end. A total of six new Digital Shorts from The Lonely Island have aired since then: Two that featured the episode's respective hosts (Adam Levine in Season 38 and Natalie Portman in Season 43); two that aired when Samberg hosted the Season 39 finale in 2014; one created for the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special in February 2015 (featuring Samberg & Adam Sandler); and one that aired during the Season 41 finale in May 2016 to promote The Lonely Island's feature film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

2005–2006: Season 31
A total of 11 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2005–2006 season.

2006–2007: Season 32
A total of 12 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2006–2007 season.

2007–2008: Season 33
A total of 11 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2007–2008 season.

2008–2009: Season 34
A total of 17 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2008–2009 season.

2009–2010: Season 35
A total of 19 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2009–2010 season.

2010–2011: Season 36
A total of 17 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2010–2011 season.

2011–2012: Season 37
A total of 14 SNL Digital Shorts were created for the 2011–2012 season.

2013-present: Additional Shorts
After Andy Samberg's departure, the digital shorts reappeared over the years. Two of them appeared in the Season 39 finale which Samberg hosted.

Dress rehearsal shorts
These shorts were filmed and shown to the studio audience during the weekly SNL dress rehearsal, but were not included in the live show and have yet to appear on air.

Other Lonely Island shorts on SNL
Produced by The Lonely Island, and/or labeled Digital Shorts on official YouTube postings, these shorts aired on an SNL episode but not with the official "An SNL Digital Short" title card. As with the Digital Shorts, these are directed by Akiva Schaffer. However, according to The Lonely Island's official website, the majority of the MacGruber shorts are directed by Jorma Taccone.

Reception
The short "Lazy Sunday", which aired on December 17, 2005, was viewed more than five million times on YouTube alone before it was removed due to copyright infringement. In late 2006, however, NBC began uploading SNL shorts on YouTube themselves. As of October 6, 2023, the upload currently available on the show's YouTube channel has received over four million views.

The short "Dick in a Box", which aired on December 16, 2006, was viewed more than 28 million times on YouTube. The uncensored version was available on YouTube with a special warning, stating that the sketch contained explicit language that was censored from the television version. The song also won a Creative Arts Emmy Award in 2007 for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. Songs from five other Digital Shorts received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics: "Motherlover" in 2009; "Shy Ronnie" in 2010; and "I Just Had Sex", "Jack Sparrow", and "3-Way (The Golden Rule)" in 2011.

The Shooting
The Shooting, also known as Dear Sister, was broadcast during an episode aired April 14, 2007. The short satirizes the final scene of The O.C.'s second-season finale. The Lonely Island had the idea for the short before even being hired by Saturday Night Live and had previously recorded their own version of the short. The NBC network, which usually uploads Saturday Night Live digital shorts to its official site and YouTube channel immediately following broadcast, did not do so for Dear Sister due to music clearance issues. It nevertheless became immensely popular on YouTube with artists making parodies, re-enactments and other references.

Plot
Keith (Bill Hader) writes a letter to his sister, as Dave (Andy Samberg) asks what he is doing. As Keith responds, explaining he has not seen his sister in a long time, Dave suddenly and inexplicably shoots him. In the following overly dramatic, slow-motion death overdubbed by a cue of "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap, Dave is seen visibly shaken as Keith, in shock, collapses. As Dave gathers his bearings, Keith suddenly shoots him, having recovered from his injury long enough to exact his revenge to the same music cue.

Another man, Eric (Shia LaBeouf), enters looking for them. Dave comes back to life to shoot Eric in the stomach; he collapses, once again to the same music. The sister herself (Kristen Wiig) enters the scene, and begins to read the letter, until she too is shot several times by each of the three men on the ground, with the music cue restarting with every shot.

The short ends with two police officers (Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen) observing the crime scene. One (Armisen) finds the letter, left on the table near the brother's body, and begins to read. The letter is revealed to be a prediction of each shooting, in detail, and ends claiming that two police officers will come across the letter and then shoot each other after reading it. While the reading officer laughs it off, his partner turns and shoots him, as the reading officer shoots his partner as well, to overlapping "Hide and Seek" cues.

Controversy
On April 16, 2007, two days following the initial air date of the sketch, the Virginia Tech shooting occurred and became the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history at the time. Noam Cohen of The New York Times criticized fans of the short for insensitivity when they continued to make YouTube videos based on it.