And as for SNL bashing Republicans? I can say, as a registered Republican, that we are VERY bashable. And you should avoid the super-liberal Huckabee-booking SNL and simply confine your viewing to The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, MADtv and all the other shows that never bash Republicans.

Now if we're to compare variety shows of human history to SNL, I find "Toonces, The Cat Who Can Drive A Car" FAR funnier than "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" I can, in fact, give you a very long list of SNL sketches I found funnier than anything I saw on "Chappelle's." (This is not to say I didn't laugh at "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" But "Toonces" was the cat's meow. If you will.)

I personally appreciate framing sketches as TV shows, as it makes it easy to give the sketches definitive titles. (Useful for cataloging purposes, among other things.)

And, yes, SCTV was hilarious and wonderful, even as it framed virtually every sketch as a TV show.

If you're wondering how he
He eats and breathes
And other science facts?
Just think to yourself,
"It's just a show,
I should really just relax."

Elliott's co-stars that year included Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Macdonald, Mohr, Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, Kevin Nealon and Mark McKinney.

Besides Elliott’s completely hilarious “Dracula’s Not Gay,” sketches that year included “Total Bastard Airlines,” “The Ron Wood Show,” “Bathroom Monkey,” “Joycelyn Elders Press Conference,” “George Foreman: Incredible Hulk,” “Scottish Soccer Hooligan Weekly,” “Sea Park,” “Zagat’s,” “Steve Martin’s Famous Penis Crème,” “Where’s Superman?” “Bob Swerski’s Super Fans,” “Christopher Walken For Skittles,” “Matt Foley in Venezuela,” and “Polar Bear Cage.” Macdonald was anchoring Update. Mike Judge contributed several “Office Space” cartoons.

My vote for the show's true, absolute nadir:

1983-84: Joe Piscopo, Gary Kroeger, Tim Kazurinski, Brad Hall, Robin Duke, Jim Belushi, Mary Gross, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Writers like Michael O’Donoghue, Brian Doyle-Murray, Rosie Shuster, Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield were long gone. Piscopo was now on the writing staff. Eddie Murphy contributed a handful of generic, pre-taped solo sketches, then left early in the season to make “Beverly Hills Cop.” Sketches that season included “What Would Frank Sinatra Do?” “Boy George Burns,” “I Married A Monkey,” and “Ghandi and the Bandit.”

People remember the shitty Anthony Michael Hall and Terry Sweeney stuff, but forget brilliant stuff like Vlad the Impaler, Die Foreigner Die, Master Thespian, Fisherman's Treasure, Limits of the Imagination and Tornadoville.

A much underrated season, and underrated largely because it had to follow the one-season all-star cast of Martin Short, Chris Guest, Rich Hall, Billy Crystal, et al ...