Saturday Night Live is a TV staple, but what happens when you bring that staple to MVHS? You end up with a bucketful of laughs. This year’s annual MV SNL was held in the auditorium on Sept. 23 and 24. The night started off with the senior sketch, when in previous years it usually was saved until the end. The senior sketch consisted of the ultimate fight between pirates and ninjas, of course. Oh, and some fruit ninjas as well.

The sketches continued with topics ranging from spelling bees to Mary Shelley, and though their jokes were well planned, the first half of the show did not quite live up to the classic hilarity expected from SNL. The spelling bee skit was funny, but that’s all that was memorable from it. Yes, slurred, made-up words do cause laughter but a dry ending does not. The audience laughed, but the length of applause implied it was more out of politeness than actual amusement.  And though it was funny the first time the Merryville Trolley Ride robots winked at the crowd, when they brought out the pickaxes it simply felt overdone, and a little creepy.

The show was split into two parts by a performance, and the band JLQ played admirably despite the lack of a working keyboard on Friday night.

After the intermission, the skits seemed to have finally found their SNL essence. A skit that stood out the most was a take on the cliche fraternity: Sigma Lamda Omega. It started out with vibrant energy that was almost tangible. Three fraternity brothers crowded around one of their pledges to try and understand the answer to life’s most complicated questions, such as “What happens to the little people in the TV when we turn it off? And are they okay?”  The audience immediately filled with booming sounds of laughs, maybe even some tears.  MV SNL could not be completed without the return of Sean Connery on last skit of the night: Celebrity Jeopardy. If Voldemort Avada Kedavra-ing Lady Gaga wasn’t enough, the stubbornly stupid answers of the contestants made for a skit that made audience members laugh over and over.

After a first half that seemed intent on falling flat, MV SNL ended on a high note. And guess what? The people in the TV are going to be just fine.