She’s baaaack.
Tina Fey is hosting the season premiere of Saturday Night Live tonight, a familiar role for the multi-hyphenate star. Since leaving her position as head writer and cast member on the show in 2006, Fey has stopped by Studio 8H over a half-dozen times. Her last appearance was in May 2011, which featured her famous Sarah Palin impression, jokes about her pregnancy, and many jokes about Osama bin Laden’s death.
It’s not hard to imagine why Fey keeps getting invited back—she ups the laughter quotient every time she steps on the SNL stage. Counting down the hours until she returns for tonight’s premiere? Bide your time by taking a trip back down memory lane with some of Fey’s most hilarious moments on the late-night sketch show.
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"A Non-partisan Message"
Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election will go down in history as one of Fey’s best moments on SNL. It’s one of the best moments on SNL, period. The impression earned her an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy, no surprise given how convincingly she mimicked Palin’s “you betcha” accent. In her book Bossypants, Fey claims that her Palin impression did nothing to help net her comedy 30 Rock more viewers. That may be true. But, at the very least, it did make us love her even more.
"Bitch Is the New Black"
When Fey returned to Studio 8H as a host in 2008, she stopped by the Weekend Update desk as the “Special Women’s News Correspondent.” Fey’s segment discussed the sexism prevalent in the Democratic presidential primary race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. While she may not like the fact that Senator Clinton’s critics call her a “bitch”, she argues that the characterization should be taken as a compliment. Why? Because “bitches get stuff done.”
Annuale
This is yet another gem from the first time Fey hosted in 2008. Annuale is a fake birth control pill that limits a women’s menstrual cycle to once a year, a parody of the real pill, Seasonale. The joke here: the clichéd “rage” that people stereotypically argue accompanies a woman’s monthly menstrual cycle has an entire year to build up to terrifying proportions. How can you not die from laughter at the sight of an axe-wielding Tina Fey? Fun fact: Fey would later bring back the idea of a pill that limits a woman’s menses to once a year in the fourth season of 30 Rock.
Brownie Husband
Brownie Husband from Lilián López Camberos on Vimeo.
Tina Fey knows what the people want. And what the people want is combination chocolate-snack-lover. That’s the premise for this faux commercial for Duncan Hines’ “Brownie Husband,” the company’s first ever companion desert. The premise alone is funny, but what really takes it to gut-busting territory is the conviction with which Fey “makes out” with her brownie husband, licking “his” caramel filling.
Teacher
Tina Fey plays a lonely teacher named Sharon who is having an inappropriate daydream about Jason, a student in her class played by Justin Bieber. Sharon loves the way Jason’s “hair really knows just where it wants to go” and can’t decide whether she wants to marry him or put him in a stroller and roll him around the mall. So wrong. And so funny.
Mother’s Message Monologue
In 2011, a six-months-pregnant Tina Fey hosted the Mother’s Day episode of SNL. As is the Fey way, her opening monologue included some stellar self-deprecating jokes. “I have the number one book in the country and the 84th TV show,” she says, for example. But the best part of the monologue comes when pregnant former cast member Maya Rudolph joins Fey onstage to sing a song to their unborn babies. What initially starts out as a sweet ballad slowly turns into a dirty jam about how the babies are a sign that their parents have been “doin’ it.” Fey apologizes to her unborn child for the 3three weeks she didn’t know it was in there saying, “a little sushi, rose wine and roller coasters never hurt nobody.” Rudolph and Fey end the song Natalie Cole style, as each duetting with her unborn child.
Lindsay Lohan on Weekend Update
In 2005, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler had Lindsay Lohan on Weekend Update as part of their “Teen Mentoring Program.” Fey and Poehler worried about Lohan’s revealing clothes and eating habits, saying she has “Mischa Barton arms.” The clip’s crowning moment occurs when Fey asks if Lohan’s breasts are real. Why so curious, Tina? According to Fey, who wrote and co-starred in Mean Girls with Lohan, it’s a question she receives the quite often and she always tells people they are. She would hate for Lohan to make a liar out of her.
