25 best cold-opens in SNL history

3. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s debut as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton

There are a few sketches that immediately come to mind when people talk about SNL. This is one of them. Not only was Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s portrayals of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton groundbreaking, spawning several follow-up sketches, it was a defining moment for the two as a professional duo. Sure, Fey and Poehler were a thing before this, as they anchored “Weekend Update” together for two years. But this sketch put them on the map, and paved the way for their joint hosting of awards shows.

While the most famous line is easily “I can see Russia from my house,” they also make reference to Palin’s lipstick joke and Jack Cafferty’s “one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency” line. People forget that this sketch was actually meant to be a PSA about sexism. That’s why, if there’s any fault in this sketch, it’s that the message gets lost rather easily because of Fey and Poehler.

Since Palin and Clinton were prominent figures during the 2008 presidential race, they faced a ton of sexist remarks, but as the two later revealed, the comments they received were wildly divergent. Palin got all the cat calls, and the heads on bikini pics, while Clinton was referred to as a “boner shrinker” and a “FLIRG” (we’re not going to tell you what that means).

While they try to be friends, despite being political rivals, Clinton can’t take it when Palin talks about how close she is getting to the White House. She brilliantly drags Palin through the mud, and calls her out for wearing Tina Fey glasses, but she doesn’t hear a word of it because she’s too busy flirting with the crowd. That is actually the best part of the sketch, but it doesn’t get talked about often enough.

And, of course, Clinton announces that she only wants to become President, she didn’t want just any woman to become President. However, SNL might be seriously regretting the line “anyone can be President, all you have to do is want it” since Trump could’ve easily been watching this at the time and thinking that.

Not everything Fey and Poehler do together is a hit — looking at you, Sisters — but this sketch is comedy gold. It’s no secret why SNL kept bringing it back and adding layers to it, like when the real Palin shared a scene with Fey, and the two of them met Kate McKinnon’s Clinton.