The jokes I wrote for SNL that never aired

For a few years before I became a staff writer at The Tonight Show, I sent (solicited) jokes to the producers of SNL’s Weekend Update. There were many rules to these submissions: one email a week, up to five jokes for consideration, one punchline per joke, plenty of specifics about formatting, and (famously) no profanity. One of the segment’s producers would send out a list of set-ups based on news stories each day, I’d send back a word document, and that was that. The process was a reminder of a truth all writers understand: submitting your content for consideration is not dissimilar to launching a vinyl record into the vacuum of deep space.

With SNL’s 50th anniversary special last night, I got curious and read through the roughly 150 jokes I’d sent in over a few seasons. I was worried my space-bound vinyl was full of embarrassingly bad writing—but it turns out some of the jokes still feel silly and surprising in the best way, like this:

A new report lists the best company to work for as AirBnB. While the worst company to work for is still Hand-Delivered Fist-fulls of Boiling Water.

Some legitimately made me laugh to read again, like this one that’s getting less funny the more housing costs rise:

A North Carolina man who won one million dollars in the lottery plans to use the money to buy a house and two goats. Two very expensive goats.

Some still feel frustratingly relevant, like this (ten years ago!):

Facebook is going to start offering tips for how to detect fake news stories. What’s the first step to identify if something is fake news? If you’re reading it on Facebook.

Some packed a good joke into just a few words, like this: