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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14. Fox Mulder meets Janet Reno in the most ’90s sketch ever

David Duchovny and Will Ferrell join forces in a sketch featuring Fox Mulder and Janet Reno. Does it get any more ’90s than that? When Duchovny hosted an episode of SNL, while The X-Files was at the height of its popularity, you knew they couldn’t pass up the chance to have him play Mulder.

The sketch starts with Mulder meeting someone he’s been exchanging messages with named Deep Throat. It turns out to be Reno, but her having a deep voice actually works in this context. Because Mulder is so caught up in discovering signs of alien life forms, he couldn’t see the obvious signs that Reno was coming on to him. This makes sense, based on how long the show drew out the will-they-won’t-they with Scully.

However, Mulder was right to believe their conversations were about aliens. After all, Reno left him a message about aliens (which turned out to be the James Cameron film) and UFOs (which ended up standing for unbelievably ferocious orgasm). And, of course, Deep Throat was her old sorority nickname.

Mulder ends any hope of them being together when Reno knocks out Scully, although Farrell does still plant a kiss on him. Then, Reno reveals she’s been with Krycek the whole time.

Even though Duchovny and Ferrell were in roles they knew extremely well, it must’ve been hard for them to get through this sketch without laughing. Even though Ferrell’s doing the comedic heavy lifting here, Duchovny quickly picked up on how to play the straight man. Of course, he would end up getting to flex his comedic muscles on Californication.