TOP 5 SNL JOKES & SKETCHES THAT SNUCK PAST THE CENSORS

By Barry Dutter

1) The classic “Lord & Lady Douche Bag” sketch from 1980. The basic premise of the sketch, written by Buck Henry, was that various nobles meet for a dinner party in the year 1730. Each person at the party has something named after them. Lord Salisbury has the Salisbury Steak. The Earl of Sandwich has the Sandwich. And Lord & Lady Douche Bag have, well, an invention that they don’t want to leak just yet. Never before have the words “douche bag” been used so many times on one of the Big Three networks.

2) In a Monica Lewinsky skit from the 1990s, the actress playing Monica Lewinsky orders a Bartles & James in a bar. She then explains to her friends, “I love BJ‘s.” And anyone watching at home thinks of Bill Clinton and smiles.

3) The “Colonel Angus” sketch (2009). Christopher Walken plays a Civil War soldier who goes by the name of “Colonel Angus” -- a name that sounds an awful lot like a certain term describing a sexual act that is greatly enjoyed by women. This is a one-joke skit, with that one joke repeated about 20 times -- until we learn the Colonel’s first name is Enal -- at which point, we get a bunch of jokes about Enal Angus, which sounds like another sex act approached from the opposite end.

4) The Sofa Kings Sketch (2007): When I lived in Florida years ago, there was a bar called “Sofa Kings. “ The tagline for the bar was that this place is “sofa king good,” a play on the phrase “so fucking good.” In 2007, SNL decided to take that old schoolyard joke and make a skit about it. Another one-joke skit, seemingly done just to see if they could sneak it past the censors. They succeeded. SNL had similar success with Alec Baldwin’s Schwetty Balls sketches and Betty White talking about her moist muffins.

5) The all-time classic from 1977: “Planet of the Men vs. the Planet of the Women,” a skit about a battle of the sexes -- in space! Aboard the penis-shaped male spaceship: Host Hugh Hefner as Captain Macho. Dan Aykroyd as Lt. Testosterone. John Belushi as Corporal Hardin. Over in the donut-shaped women’s ship, Gilda Radner is Lt. Areola..... Well, you get the idea. The ships collide with the male ship penetrating the female ship, in a rather phallic manner. The women are disappointed with the size of the male ship, but they hope the men will attack again in half an hour. The men acknowledge that the female ship will never be the same again after they penetrate it, and they think about making another go at it. But all the men fell asleep before that happens. It’s funny because it’s true!