An ''SNL'' Digital Short is one in a series of comedic and often musical video shorts created for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...

''. 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 Jorma Christopher Taccone (; born March 19, 1977) is an American comedian, director, actor, and writer. He is one-third of the sketch comedy troupe The Lonely Island, with childhood friends Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer. In 2010, Taccone co-wr ...

Akiva Schaffer Akiva D. Schaffer (; born December 1, 1977) is an American film director, comedian, actor, and writer. He is a member of the comedy group The Lonely Island along with Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. He began his career with The Lonely Island m ...

, and

Andy Samberg Andy Samberg (born David A. J. Samberg; August 18, 1978) is an American actor, comedian, musician, producer and screenwriter. He is a member of the comedy music group The Lonely Island and was a cast member on '' Saturday Night Live'' from 200 ...

) 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 Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of discrete symbols eac ...

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 Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag, he, נטע-לי הרשלג, ) is an Israeli-born American actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters and independent films, receiving mu ...

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 "''Saturday Night Live'' 40th Anniversary Special" (also billed as "SNL40") is a three-and-a-half-hour prime-time special that aired on February 15, 2015, on NBC, celebrating ''Saturday Night Live''s 40th year on the air, having premiered on Oc ...

in February 2015 (featuring Samberg &

Adam Sandler Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, producer and singer. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1990 to 1995, before going on to star in numerous Hollywood films, those of wh ...

); 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''.

List of shorts

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

'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 YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

alone before it was removed due to

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

. In late 2006, however, NBC began uploading ''SNL'' shorts on YouTube themselves. As of September 25, 2019, th
upload currently available on the show's YouTube channel
has received over two 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 The Creative Arts Emmys are a class of Emmy Awards presented in recognition of technical and other similar achievements in American television programming. They are commonly awarded to behind-the-scenes personnel such as production designers, set ...

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

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 William Thomas Hader Jr.''Finding Your Roots'', January 26, 2016, PBS. (born June 7, 1978) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is the creator, producer, writer, director, and star of the HBO dark comedy series ''Barry'' (201 ...

) writes a letter to his sister, as Dave (

) 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 Hide-and-seek (sometimes known as hide-and-go-seek) is a popular children's game in which at least two players (usually at least three) conceal themselves in a set environment, to be found by one or more seekers. The game is played by one chose ...

" by

Imogen Heap Imogen Jennifer Heap (born 9 December 1977) is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Her work has been considered pioneering in pop and electropop music. Heap classically trained in piano, cello and clarinet starting at a ...

, 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 Kristen Carroll Wiig (; born August 22, 1973) is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Born in Canandaigua, New York, she was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Rochester, New York. She moved to Los Angeles, where she jo ...

) 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 Daniel Jason Sudeikis ( ; born September 18, 1975) is an American actor, comedian, producer, and writer. In the 1990s, he began his career in improv comedy and performed with ComedySportz, iO Chicago (Improv Olympic), and The Second City. In 200 ...

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 The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting that occurred on April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, an u ...

occurred and became the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history at the time. Noam Cohen of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' criticized fans of the short for insensitivity when they continued to make YouTube videos based on it.

External links

"Dear Sister" video on The Lonely Island website

Dear Sister YouTube video

References

{{The Lonely Island Saturday Night Live sketches Saturday Night Live in the 2000s 2005 web series debuts Saturday Night Live in the 2010s