Saturday Night Live/Heartwarming

You may be surprised, but Saturday Night Live did have these kinds of moments.

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• Season 14: Steve Martin ended up hosting the program the same day Gilda Radner passed away (May 20, 1989; S 14 E 20). Instead of the planned monologue (where Martin discusses his good and bad sides in photography), Steve pays tribute to Gilda by flashing back to the Season 3 episode he hosted in 1978 where he and Radner did a takeoff of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon in a sketch set at a discotheque. At the end of the clip, Steve mentions how much he's going to miss Gilda and there are visible tears in his eyes.
  • Years later, on the season 37 episode hosted by Emma Stone, one of the bumpers showed episode host Emma Stone as Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna (even though the logo for SNL they used was the one from season six). Despite the flaw mentioned in the parentheses, the fact that they did this (and the fact that Emma Stone looked so much like Gilda) showed that, despite all of SNL's changes and peaks and valleys, they still remember the people who made the show great (be they living or dead).
• Season 14: The Schillers' Reel short film "Love is a Dream" which, while a departure from the usual comedy fare, is one of the most beautiful and heartwarming things to be shown on SNL. It involves an elderly woman (Jan Hooks) flashing back to her younger self while looking at her safety deposit box containing a tiara and a necklace. In the flashback we see a man played by Phil Hartman in uniform and taking her by the hand as they waltz together. It's just so romantic, but the capper is when the flashback ends and we see the elderly woman again. She departs from the bank and she glances at the security guard (who had previously let her in) and it's the same gentleman from the flashback. Unfortunately, with Hartman's death in 1998, this now doubles as a Tear Jerker.
• Season 19: The last sketch on the season finale with Phil Hartman and Chris Farley singing "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound of Music, now a Harsher in Hindsight moment as both Farley and Hartman died within six months of each other in the late 90s.
• Season 28: The end of the Queen Latifah episode, where Horatio Sanz does a tribute to Mr. Rogers (the episode first aired around the time that Mr. Rogers died).
• Season 30: Similarly, an episode had Darrell Hammond as Rodney Dangerfield (who had recently passed away at the time of the episode's premiere) doing his "I don't get no respect" schtick for St. Peter (Horatio Sanz). Rodney thinks he has to do it to get into Heaven, but really St. Peter just wanted to hear Dangerfield's jokes just because. Oddly enough, that episode was also hosted by Queen Latifah (this time as host and musical guest; the first time she was on, she just hosted)...
• Season 33: On the episode hosted by Ellen Page, there was a final sketch where a girl (Page) tells her boyfriend (played by Andy Samberg) about the fun time she had at a Melissa Etheridge concert, and her boyfriend keeps accusing her of being a lesbian because of how much she enjoyed it. You would expect the boyfriend to dump her or only keep her around so he can watch her make out with other girls, right? Wrong. The boyfriend told his ex that if she's going to go gay, then he'll go gay too so they can share the apartment they live in and still be friends.
• Season 35: On the Tina Fey/Justin Bieber episode, there's a sketch where Fey plays a nine-inch-tall hooker named Loleen who sells her body so she can raise money to go to Paris. When she hears that a priest (Bill Hader) has to come up with $1,300 overnight or his orphanage will be shut down, Loleen gives the priest her money to save the orphanage, telling the priest not to tell the kids who the donor is or what she had to do to get it.
• Season 35: Betty White's episode as host counts as a Crowning Moment of Awesome, a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, and a Crowning Moment of Funny — the first for the simple fact that White is now the oldest SNL host ever (88-and-a-half!), the second for the standing ovation she got just before her monologue and during the closing credits, and the third for several of the skits during the show.
• During the 25th anniversary special, some screentime is devoted to honoring cast members that have passed on. A couple involve some good natured ribbing of the departed, of course, but there's no doubt they're honoring the departed. Appropriately, Dan Aykroyd and Laraine Newman do a segment about John Belushi; Steve Martin again about Gilda Radner; David Spade about Chris Farley; and Jon Lovitz (backed up by the 80s cast) about "[his] big brother, Phil Hartman."
• The Zooey Deschanel episode, in which a brief still of Whitney Houston on a Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch was shown before commercial break in complete silence (the episode happened to air around the time Whitney Houston's death made the news).
  • Similarly, the Catherine Zeta-Jones episode had a brief still shot of Charles Rocket (with the caption: "Charles Rocket: 1949 - 2005) that appeared after Weekend Update. It may not seem like much, but think about it: SNL chose to honor a cast member from a much-maligned and mostly-forgotten season because Rocket is still considered a part of SNL's history, no matter what the fans think.
• When George Carlin died in 2008, rather than rerun the season 33 episode hosted by Ellen Page, the network decided to air the very first episode (which Carlin hosted) in his memory.
• After seven years on the show and the last few as it's most prominent cast member Kristen Wiig gets a sendoff at the end of the 2011-2012 season finale hosted by Mick Jagger. In a graduation sketch Kristen is brought up by "principal" Jagger as she's "leaving to become a nun". Then the "music department" Arcade Fire sings the Rolling Stones song "She's a Rainbow" as a tearful Kristen takes off her graduation gown to reveal a pretty dress and she has a brief solo dance with Mick and then with each her fellow cast members. A solo with each of the guys and all girls at once. The most emotional dances being with Bill Hader and Jason Sudekis who started at the same time with her. Finally with SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels who once said Wiig was one of the best SNL players in history. Then the whole cast along and former members Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Steve Martin, Jagger, the Foo Fighters and Arcade Fire sang the Stones song "Ruby Tuesday".

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