TVSquad

Christmas is the easiest holiday to make fun of because it can be so hokey and jolly. It's like the office jolly holly -- someone who's always smiling, always bringing gooey sweet goodies to the office for no reason, always cackling at everyone's jokes, no matter how bad they are or what MadTV episode they were taken from.

But deep down, you know that anyone that happy has to be making up for something equivalently dark and sinister. They are hiding a dark secret, something they can't even admit to themselves. You just know that the rises in sick leave usage after she brings her secret recipe brownies aren't coincidences.

Christmas wears the same mask. All it takes is a little scratching to find something dark and funny behind its red and white veneer. SNL has had some great success taking pot shots at Christmas, even during the down times, for this very reason. It's hard not to find something funny about Christmas, but it's hard to keep finding something funny about it long after the turkey has been picked clean and the eggnog has left a thin layer of plaque on the inside of your small intestine. Here are the best of the best.

Let's face the brutal truth here for a moment: Saturday Night Live isn't really known for its live sketches anymore. I can't remember the last time I heard someone talk about how funny a sketch was on a past week's show. However, when it comes to their digital shorts, well, then they're the bomb (as the young generation is saying today). The trend began last year with the super-colossally popular Lazy Sunday short, followed weeks later by the semi-super-colossally popular Laser Cats. The digital short sensation continued this year with Dick in a Box and Peyton Manning for the United Way.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that NBC is trying to jump on the popularity of these shorts with a contest that will send one lucky participant to the season finale of SNL.

Just when I got the original "Dick in a Box" song out of my head, it's back in a new form. Some fans of Lost have created a parody of the Justin Timberlake/Andy Samburg music video called "Dad in a Box".

Lost fans will get that title immediately and probably even snicker. It refers to a recent episode where Ben tells John Locke all about a "magic box" on the island where you can wish for something and it will suddenly appear.

The "Dad in a Box" music video is after the jump.

The Whitest Kids U'Know was presented to us with a roll of toilet paper, and an announcement proclaiming that it's "A comedy movement that is dropping on March 20th." So, when the intro to a show leads off with toilet humor, you know you're in for something really special. The teaser they showed involved an excited couple nervously talking about trying to get pregnant, and when the time comes to reveal the test, she can't read it and asks him to do it. He tells her, "That's my IPod shuffle. You peed on my iPod shuffle. You're such a f*cking bitch."

Harsh, but funny! Granted, I love sketch comedy ... probably more than a human being should, but with the gradual downslide of Saturday Night Live ('Dick in a Box' and 'Lazy Sunday' notwithstanding), this show is about the funniest thing I've seen sketch-wise in a long time. They've been seen all over CollegeHumor.com and YouTube, so check 'em out online.

Although this was announced as an upcoming show on the Sundance Channel back in 2005, did anything ever happen with it? This version of the show premieres on Fuse on March 20th at 11PM eastern.

Lists like these can be a little confusing at this point in time. If you think about it, what exactly constitutes a "television season" now? It's hard to find something that puts a smile on your face as shows come and go so quickly. Cable networks roll out new programming whenever they want, broadcast networks start popular shows late in the season so dark weeks are avoided, and mid-season replacements pop up like weeds it seems. It feels like there's no rhyme or reason to it. That's partly due to the fact that the formula for a TV show isn't what it used to be. One thing remains though: it's either good or it's bad. Simple as that. So with that in mind, here's what put a smile on my face (and what didn't) in '06.

The Good

Michael C. Hall on Dexter -- I really can't say enough good things about Hall and this show. It's easily the best original series Showtime has ever produced, which up until now had been Huff. But the Hank Azaria drama has since been canceled and Dexter blows it away. It's that good. Hall is freakin' spectacular in it and deserves the Golden Globe. Hopefully he gets it. Seriously though, look into this show if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed.

(Part 3 of 5) In our review of the top television stories of 2005 former TV Squad scribe Ryan J. Budke said this about TV on the Internet, "If you think that 2005 was big, wait 'til 2006 -- you ain't seen nothing yet." Boy howdy, was he correct! If 2005 was the year that TV came to the Internet, then 2006 was the year that it bought a home, settled in, and joined the local PTA. From pilots and first-run episodes to classic and canceled shows, television and the World Wide Web took one step closer to being officially married in 2006. And, we have one site on the Internet to thank for this explosion . . .

YouTube.

Okay, maybe YouTube isn't the only site we should be thanking. I mean, according to Ryan, the networks realized back in 2005 that this newfangled technology called the Internet wasn't going away any time soon, so they began to utilize it. However, it was the utterly huge popularity of YouTube that pushed the networks into getting their collective acts together to get their content onto the Web.

Combine the modern miracles of the silk screen, the Hanes Beefy-T and Cafe Press, and you get more fans than ever emblazoning their TV-related affections across their chests, backs and sleeves. There are literally hundreds of tees that you could be spending your holiday booty on. What better way to tell the world that "Hiro is your hero" or that you're voting Stewart/Colbert in '08?

See ten of the best TV tees the world of online sales has to offer after the jump.

NBC and Saturday Night Live are on the naughty list of the Parents Television Council (known henceforth in this post as the PTC). The conservative watchdog organization of people who have nothing better to do are politely asking (OK, angrily demanding) that the network rethink its decision to air an uncensored version of the now famous 'Dick in a Box' skit on its own website as well as YouTube. In this particular skit, Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake liberally use Richard Nixon's nickname several times in a song about the perfect gift to give to your girlfriend.

When the skit originally aired on SNL the word was bleeped out a total of 16 times. However, since Scrooge the FCC has no jurisdiction over the Internet the network was able to leave the online clip uncensored. According to PTC blowhard president Brent Bozell NBC has hit a new low and will stop at nothing to find loopholes to have indecent programming to reach the public. In its defense the network has asked that unauthorized copies of the skit be yanked from sites like YouTube. The network's website airs both a censored and uncensored version of the skit and they have put up a warning saying that the uncensored version contains explicit lyrics.

The guys from the Lonely Island comedy troupe have been three of the most important additions to the Saturday Night Live family in a very long time. Andy Samberg is now one of the most recognizable faces on the cast, and Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer have lent their writing expertise to some of the most famous sketches of the past few seasons. For example, the "SNL Digital Shorts", like the wildly popular "Lazy Sunday", were these boys' doing.

Well, it sounds like the guys are thinking about putting their talents to LP form. Samberg recently said that they'd like to try to create an entire album of their now-famous style of hip-hop knock-offs. I'm not sure if I'd jump at the chance to buy a collection of songs like "Dick in a Box", but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't think about it.

Just like last year, when they broke down the process of making "Lazy Sunday," The New York Times is again diving into the creation of a popular SNL Digital Short. This time, of course, they're exploring "Dick in a Box", which aired last Saturday and made its way around the Interwebs soon afterwards.

This time, the article goes over the process of getting NBC to place the uncensored version on its web site and YouTube channel. Believe it or not, after Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake recorded the video, which wasn't finished until 4 PM Saturday, Lorne Michaels had to get permission from NBC late-night chief Rick Ludwin to put the uncensored version on the web site. After Ludwin saw it and liked it, he sought permission from his bosses, NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly and NBCU Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker. I can just imagine the phone conversations...

Anyway, Samberg and his buddies Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone have come a long way from the Lonely Island days, haven't they? Before, they'd do a sketch about private parts and just slap it up on the web. Now, excutives at the highest levels have to get involved. Ah, such is the price of fame, right?