The Case of the Missing SNL Sketch
What once aired live can sometimes be difficult to find!!!!
I’ve always been obsessed with television. In the mid-2000s, I liked to catch What I Like About You or Gilmore Girls on the WB when I got home from school. Friday night was TGIF on ABC where I was stoked to catch the latest episode of Hope and Faith. Saturday was for whatever classic film was programmed on The OETA Movie Club, aka the local PBS affiliate’s equivalent of Turner Classic Movies.
After the technicolor musical or black and white melodrama was finished, I went to bed. But if I was lucky, I would wake up as my dad was turning on Saturday Night Live. Tacitly, I would crawl into my dad’s chair and cuddle him. The strategy in my 11 year old brain was that if I acted like I WASN’T paying attention, he would let me sit through the stuff I knew was not age appropriate. That’s how I remember a certain sketch from 2005 that I can’t find anywhere.
November 12, 2005
My Name is Earl was kinda a big deal in the Vassar household so it is no surprise my dad tuned in to a certain SNL episode with Jason Lee as host and the Foo Fighters as the musical guest.
Fun fact: this episode was the debut of a certain incredibly talented funny woman, Kristen Wiig!
But what I specifically remember from this episode is a sketch where Jason Lee and Amy Poehler play a couple who are attending their baby shower. The only issue? This is not a normal pregnancy as Amy is pregnant in her butt.
The anal sex jokes went right over my head. In 2005, I didn’t even know how regular sex worked! My assumption was that birth control pills were to help someone GET pregnant (I even thought you took a boy pill for a boy, a girl pill for a girl). Yay Oklahoma sex education! My kid self just thought it was sooooooooo funny that she was going to have to poop out a baby.
Flash forward
This sketch is no where to be found yet there is tons of evidence online that proves this memory is correct. Even on Peacock, the official streamer of all things NBC, lists Butt Pregnancy as one of the sketches on Season 31, Episode 5!
However, PEACOCK IS GASLIGHTING US! I watched the entire episode and there was NO BUTT PREGNANCY.
In 2012, Vulture published a piece called 10 ‘SNL’ Sketches Cut From the Reruns with Butt Pregnancy being number ten. This article was an important find in my research because it addresses the fact that this specific sketch was, in fact, replaced in reruns.
“When the show rebroadcast that summer, Butt Pregnancy was missing, and in its place was a dress rehearsal sketch with office workers singing about their cafeteria’s dessert selection.”
PLOT TWIST: The dessert sketch from dress rehearsal is known as I Love Pie and I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIND THAT SKETCH EITHER!!!
Where do the sketches go?
If these sketches already aired on live television, why are they now unavailable for public consumption?
In my research, the two reasons1 I can find are:
Copyright expires. This is particularly common for any sort of parody where the licensing doesn’t extend to syndication, reruns, etc.
Lorne Michaels decides he doesn’t like it anymore and POOF! Away it goes.
In conclusion…
Live comedy used to be a normal, everyday occurrence especially when TV was king (aka pre-cable) and slowly, this very medium is disappearing. Now, Saturday Night Live is the only comedy show that enters our living rooms AS IT HAPPENS meaning that it is the leading cause of comedy lost media.
This is why I will continue to stay up until 1:30 am on Sunday because you never know what you’ll see that other might never be able to!
Epilogue
Yes, this is an adapted version of the presentation I did at a comedy show called Hyperfocus where neurodivergent comedians get to talk about one of their special interests!
I did not do extensive research into why SNL sketches go missing so in an attempt to not spread misinformation, please read these two reasons as purely for entertainment purposes.