"Hey, you! I know you! I know you!"

To preface this, I am an enormous Saturday Night Live fan. I started watching it regularly when I was about 10, and because of my bookish ways until late in high school, I somehow managed to catch almost every episode, as well as the repeats on Comedy Central. I loved the show, and grew up at the right time just as the Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey/Mike Myers/Chris Farley team was coming together.

So I was as guilty as everyone else was in not only loving The Chronicles of Narnia rap from last week's Saturday Night Live, but also in joining in the echo chamber in saying that it was the only memorable thing the show has done since the Cowbell sketch in 2000, which, at least according to E! Entertainment television, was the 5th best sketch ever. More on that later.

First, there's a problem with the premise of comparing SNL now to SNL in the mid 70's (Murray, Belushi) , early 80's (Murphy, Crystal), late 80's/early 90's (Hartman/Carvey/Myers/Farley), and then late 90's (Ferrell/Hammond). Between each of those periods of pantheon comedy there were awful, awful seasons. 1978-1980, 1983-1986, 1993-1997, and from 2002-present were all real lean years. It's impossible to keep a consistently funny cast together for several years, and new blood usually takes a while to get funny. There is always a downturn after heavyweights leave the show, and sometimes for a few years after new stars join the show (Ferrell and Hammond in the early years) So, Ferrell, Kattan, Gasteyer, and Fallon leave, and the show is going to have some bumps.

But, since Ferrell left, there have been some genuinely hilarious sketches, maybe none of which reach epic levels, but still definitely laugh out loud. The entire Justin Timberlake Episode, the The Barry Gibb Talk Show (Despite the prominent involvement of Jimmy Fallon), and Debbie Downer at Disney World, just to name a few.

Now E! Entertainment television did a top 101 list of the best SNL moments about two years ago, but reran it incessantly over the last several weeks and this time I paid attention. All they show now are compilation list shows, bad episodes of SNL, two year old Howard Stern repeats, and the Gastineau Girls. While I'm on the subject, E! has been big disappointment since they started airing SNL. They never show any episodes before 1999, and their editing sucks. At any rate, their top 101 had some glaring problems.

First of all, Tracy Morgan makes the list. Twice! Automatic grounds for disqualification. Had Horatio Sanz been on the list at all, I might have blown up the E! building. Secondly, they showed about 6 seconds of each clip, and rarely the really funny parts. Finally, and expectedly because they probably had the same idiots who decide their programming deciding how to rank the skits, the list is all out of wack.

It seems that they made a concerted effort to try to include every major player a couple of times, and that led to the absurdly high ranking of 13 to a skit called The Sensitive Naked Man with Rob Schneider which most people hardly remember, although I do because I'm a nerd. The worst offenders on the list are #10, the Partridge Family vs. The Brady Bunch, which was funny but not that funny, and the Boston Teens sketch at #11. This is atrocious. Now, granted, I can't stand Jimmy Fallon, but how in the world are you ranking the Boston Teens ahead of the Church Lady, ahead of Buckwheat Has Been Shot, and ahead of any skit featuring John Belushi, Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase or Gilda Radner? The 70's and early 80's did get shortchanged, but come on, you couldn't come up with one more sketch that was better than Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz laughing while they mess up their lines and talking like they were from Revere?

Also, they left off nearly all of the very memorably political sketches. Reagan turning out to a genius, the Bush/Gore debates in 2000, the Dukakis/Bush debate in 1988, the Clinton/Bush/Perot debates in 1992, Bob Dole on the Real World, any Darrell Hammond Clinton sketch, and Teve Torbes on Nightline. And they ranked the Clinton at McDonalds sketch 100.

It would clearly take too long and reveal too much about how much of a nerd I really am to throw in my two cents on all of their mistakes, but I will list my top 5 sketches. Let the ridiculing of how much time I exactly do have on my hands begin.


5. Chippendales Audition (9 on E!) Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze. "You see, it's just that, at Chippendales, our dancers have traditionally had that lean, muscular, healthy physique - like Adrian's - whereas yours is.. well, fat and flabby." This sketch was one of Farley's first, and it shows how far he was willing to go to get laughs. And not just cheap laughs.

4. Dead Honky (37 on E!) - Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase. "Honky Honky!" "Nigger!" "Dead Honky" Richard Pryor is just incredible in this scene, and the look on his face when he starts to realize what's going on and gets pissed off is undescribable.

3. Ebony and Ivory (7 on E!) - Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo. "You are blind as a bat and I have sight, side by side you are my amigo, negro, let's not fight!" Eddie looks and sounds exactly like Stevie Wonder and Piscopo is hilarious.

2. White Like Eddie (41 on E!) Eddie Murphy. "Slowly, I began to realize that when white people are alone, they give things to each other for free." Eddie disguises himself as a White guy and gets a free newspapers, prostitutes on the crosstown bus, and a free mortgage with no identification or collateral.

1. Synchronized Swimming.* (67 on E! ) Martin Short, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer. "I'm not that strong a swimmer." A Spinal Tap style mockumentary about Harry Shearer and a mentally retarted Martin Short preparing for the 1988 Summer Games in synchonized swimming, which is not an event.

*This one is very obscure. I don't think I've seen the sketch in 5 years or so, and with the popularity of Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, I'm amazed that this hasn't resurfaced. Just an unbelievable sketch.