In last week’s New York Times, Amy Poehler passed along the lady comedy captain’s hat to Kristen Wiig:

“The world of lady comedy is a small circle sometimes,” Ms. Poehler said, “and there’s always the thing that there can be only one female at a time in the top seat.” She added, jokingly: “I would like to send Kristen Wiig a shiny new captain’s hat because she’s taking over the captain’s position.”

Describe that lady-comedy crown, please. “It would be really stiff and high,” Ms. Poehler said, “and when you tipped it over, birds would fly out of it, like squawking pigeons, and then you could bite into it, and it would be marzipan.”

Amy Poehler can make even the New York Times hilarious.  She’s the best.

Over break, I found Amy Poehler’s last episode of SNL on my parents’ DVR and got to watch my first full episode of the show all season.  Throughout the semester I’ve watched a lot of sketches and clips that are online but I don’t watch the show when it airs on Saturday nights.  I don’t think I’m alone in this.  The only TV show that students seem to watch when it actually airs is Gossip Girl – so many people! – and late Saturday is not idea television-watching time.

Besides reinforcing Amy Poehler’s awesomeness, which is already known, the episode reminded me that actually watching SNL and watching the selected sketches that NBC releases online are not the same experience.  I almost feel like I’ve been watching a different show.

The worst result of the show’s selective availability is that the full Weekend Update is never online.  I’d give up being able to watch any sketches at all in exchange for this.  When Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey were the Weekend Update anchors, FallonFey.com had videos of every single week’s segment.  The typed highlights are still there, but no videos.  NBC does make a lot of clips from Weekend Update available, but most are of character cameos with few straight jokes and only the occasional fun Amy Poehler/Seth Meyers piece.

I’d also gotten the impression that most of the silly/dark humor was relegated to Andy Samberg’s digital shorts, like my favorite sketch of the season starring Paul Rudd as himself and featuring plenty of blood, and that the bulk of the sketches were more along the lines of the famous Sarah Palin bits with dialogue taken right from reality.  I was happily surprised to watch a sketch about singing lamps that come to life and take their owners hostage.  I would share it with you, but it’s nowhere to be found on the internet.

Ariel Karlin is a Barnard College junior majoring in English and film.  She is the Co-President of CTV.  Everybody and Television runs every Wednesday.