Live from New York it's the 25 best Saturday Night Live cold opens

25 best cold-opens in SNL history

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- "Michael Phelps" Episode 1532 -- airdate 09/13/2008 -- Pictured: (l-r) Tina Fey as Governor Sarah Palin, Amy Poehler as Senator Hillary Clinton during 'A Nonpartisan Message From Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton' skit on September 13, 2008 (Photo by Dana Edelson/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) /

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Live from New York it’s … the best cold opens that SNL has ever done, including Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore vs. George Bush, and many more.

Saturday Night Live is the most recognizable late-night show on TV. Being on air for 43 years will do that. But as far as parts of the show, the only one that’s more famous than the cold open is “Weekend Update.” And even that doesn’t come with a famous sign-off like you always hear at the beginning of the show.

Save for the seventh season, which went through a weird phase where they had to switch producers and had a shorthanded cast, the cold open has been a key element of every SNL episode. Chevy Chase gave birth to the famous phrase that comes at the end of every cold open, and he almost always delivered it after falling over. Lord only knows how bruised he was after every show.

The most unique part about the sign-off is that whoever delivers must always break character. That’s why, even though everyone knows it’s coming, most of the fun comes from seeing the build-up to it and how that actor is going to break character. Chase used the fall to help him transition from character to SNL cast member. Others employ more traditional methods.

While it’s hard to pick just 25 cold opens from over 800 episodes of SNL, these are the opening sketches that instantly stick out in everyone’s mind. A lot of them are political sketches, but that’s because the writers love to place them at the beginning to set the tone. Say an episode airs right after a big political event, like a debate. Everyone will be tuning in to see how SNL lampoons it, which is why they usually waste no time getting right into it.

While you can expect to see a lot of Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton, and George Bush, and Donald Trump, there are some fun non-political sketches here too and, spoiler alert, the no. 1 sketch isn’t political. Since this is a list about cold opens, it only feels right to close off this opening slide with, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”