Short, self-contained comic scenes performed by an ensemble, the founding format of Saturday Night Live and its international spin-offs. Sketch comedy was both medium and message in October 2026: a Dr. Seuss-inspired sketch produced Shane Gillis’s accidental on-air swear, while SNL UK’s scripted Weekend Update sketch answered his whole episode — the form critiquing itself from inside the same franchise.
(Bryan Berlin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0))
Mentioned in: When Comedy Roasts Its Own: What the Shane Gillis Row Says About Two Kinds of Late Night