It’s a New York state of mind.
“Saturday Night Live” is one of New York City’s most iconic shows – and as the sketch comedy celebrates 50 years on the air with two specials, it’s the perfect time to look back at its best sketches mocking Manhattan.
“SNL” is celebrating its half-centennial with “SNL50: The Anniversary Special,” (airing on a rare Sunday night (Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. on NBC and Peacock) and “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert,” (streaming live from Radio City Music Hall on Peacock Friday, Feb. 14 at 8 p.m.).
Carol Leifer, an Emmy-nominated writer who has worked on the Oscars, “Seinfeld” and “Saturday Night Live,” told The Post that as she looks back, “You realize not only what an institution it is, but how it’s really shaped the culture.”
She added: “Lorne Michaels..this man and his eye for talent, is amazing.”
Leifer was an “SNL” writer at the beginning of her career in 1985 during the infamous Season 11, when the cast included Joan Cusack, Jon Lovitz, Robert Downey Jr., and Anthony Michael Hall.
“[Downey Jr.] and Anthony Michael Hall were the kids on the show, I think they used to skateboard around the halls, it was crazy,” she recalled.
“But, whatever sketches they were in, they were funny,” she went on. “I look back on it and they were so young to be on the show that I’m sure it was also just very difficult for them to navigate the place.”
Leifer viewed the experience as a training ground.
“A lot of people think writers have to get some inspiration and you have to think about things and then maybe write something.”
But on “SNL,” she said, “You have to produce a lot, and also pretty quickly….So I think it also gave me a great work ethic. Comedy is not a slow business. It’s fast. And ‘SNL’ is much more competitive than ‘Seinfeld’ or other sitcoms I’ve worked on. So as my first writing job, it was a good one to have because it was like a marine boot camp.”
Here are the best moments when “SNL” took a bite out of The Big Apple.
“Only In New York”
In a Season 15 sketch in 1990, “SNL” did a parody of legendary Post columnist Cindy Adams and her husband, Joe Adams.
“They peed on me long ago. It was no mazel tov,” Adams, now 91, wrote in a column reflecting on the sketch.
She added, “Since I still have that same Gucci jacket I wore when they urinated on me, maybe that’s a small mazel-tov-let.”
“New York City Council Campaign”
During an episode in the current Season 50, John Mulaney stars as fake “City Council” candidate Harvey Epstein. “Is my name ideal? Of course not. I share a name with two of the most notorious sex perverts of all time,” he says in the sketch, referring to Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. Various New Yorkers weigh in about how maybe he deserves a “second chance,” even as he protests that he’s a different guy.
“New York PSA”
The Nov. 2020 sketch is mostly a serious PSA thanking the people of New York – and especially the frontline workers – for banding together during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it soon becomes clear that the same eccentric woman (played by Kate McKinnon) is dancing in the background as each cast member talks solemnly about the pandemic. Soon, their “PSA” devolves into them talking about her.
“Transit Workers”
In a sketch that originally aired in 1993 in Season 19, Tim Meadows plays a man taking the subway trying to find out if the D train is running. A transit worker gives a comically unintelligible announcement over the loudspeaker. The sketch then reveals that as the transit workers (played by Kevin Nealon and Ellen Cleghorne) step away from the speaker and talk to each other normally, they still communicate in unintelligible mumbles. Phil Hartman then appears as the head of the “International Brotherhood of Transit Workers” and also speaks in indecipherable mumbles.
“New York Musical”
In this 2020 sketch about a Times Square souvenir shop during the pandemic, to help the owner (John Mulaney) out with his dwindling business, Pete Davidson says he’ll buy a pair of “I heart NY” underwear. When he wants to try it on, it’s revealed that the store has a back section where the Times Square mascots (such as Kenan Thompson dressed as a minion) mingle and break into song. Maya Rudolph gets a solo as the Statue of Liberty.
“Weekend Update”
In a 2017 episode from Season 43, Pete Davidson joins Colin Jost on “Weekend Update” to reveal why he’s not going home to Staten Island for Thanksgiving. He also gives a shout-out to The Post. “I feel like my hometown doesn’t really like me,” he says, reminiscing about how he’s made public comments dissing the borough. He points out their local newspaper fawning over Jost but not Davidson. He then points out a 2016 article in the Post where reporter Dean Balsamini told him he’d be “sleeping with the fishes” if he kept publicly insulting Staten Island. “That’s a death threat. In a newspaper!” Davidson exclaims.
“Port Authority Duane Reade”
In Season 50, a Duane Reade cashier in Port Authority Bus Terminal (John Mulaney) deals with two customers (Pete Davidson and Andrew Dismukes), as Davidson’s character asks to buy milk, and everyone else is aghast at his purchase. The back of the store opens to reveal a “family of possums” (Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim in possum costumes) singing about how the milk is from them. Andy Samberg makes a cameo as “the dead bear that RFK dropped in Central Park.” The sketch takes aim at everything about the Port Authority environment, from the bus drivers to the stores to the security. There’s even a nod to the Timothee Chalamet look-alike contest.
“Subway Churros”
In 2022, Andrew Dismukes plays a man who surprises and alarms his friends by buying a churro in a subway station. Kenan Thompson appears as a “mole person” cautioning about the risks (“an hour before you, a rat bit it too,” he sings, and breaks into a mole man song to the tune of Fiddler on the Roof’s “If I were A Rich Man”). Cecily Strong appears as a woman on the tracks who sings about being high on bath salts, as they all sing about midtown being the “worst part” of the city.” A conductor pulls up to say, “this is the F train running on the Q tracks, skipping random stations when I feel like it.”
“Subway Platform”
In Season 49, a man played by Devon Walker asks the head of an investment banking firm to consider him for a job while they’re on a subway platform. Behind them in the train, commuters make a typical NYC ruckus – someone drops their pants, someone else gets into a fight – getting increasingly distracting in the background of their serious conversation as solemn music plays.
“Subway”
In a Season 13 sketch that aired in 1987, Phil Hartman plays a man begging for money on the subway claiming to be a Vietnam vet. After shaming everyone into giving him cash, he then keeps changing his story to garner more sympathy. First, he says he’s actually an actor who needs money if anyone was moved by his “performance.” Finally, after sweeping the subway car for money twice, he says he’s not an actor, he’s actually a “psychotic.”
“SNL50: The Anniversary Special” airs Sunday (not Saturday!) at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.
