For 50 years, Long Island has been a favorite target of 'Saturday Night Live' laughs

Over the decades, "Saturday Night Live," which celebrates its 50th season Sunday with a three-hour live special on NBC, has often looked to the east for laughs — east of the Nassau-Queens border, that is. Possibly more than any other part of the country with the exception of Manhattan, Long Island has been an endless source of material.

But why? Here are 10 sketches that bore deep into the wellspring of that comic inspiration (Hint: The iconic accent hasn't hurt.)

LONG ISLAND MEDIUM

This 2012 send-up from Season 38 featured Sea Cliff native Kate McKinnon (who else?) as Theresa Caputo, and (in quite the stretch) episode host Daniel Craig as then-husband Larry. McKinnon took each Caputoesque element — the hair, the voice, the gestures and especially the nails — then blew them up, and right off the screen. Vanessa Bayer, as daughter Victoria, was game, too: "It doesn't matter where my mom goes, she always finds someone with a dead relative." McKinnon was absolutely pitch perfect in this: "One of the problems with being a medium on Long Island is that everybody has shared experiences," she says, waving those lethal nails. Cut to a room full of strangers where she asks, "Who had a grandfather who choked on a meatball Parm?" Everyone raises their hands.

HUGE JEWELRY

Meet Gabrielle Bologna (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Dina Bologna Zottarello (McKinnon) and their huge jewelry store, which they say is in "a beautiful strip mall on Jericho Turnpike." (This fauxmercial concludes by adding the store is in Massapequa, so the geography's way off-base.) Gabrielle: "Here on Long Island, the only thing as big as our dreams is our family." Dana: "And our God-given breasts!" As billed, Huge Jewelry sells huge jewelry, but this 2016 (season 41, episode 18) commercial parody really wanted to show off the rest of the cast's facility with Long Island accents, and even musical guest Nick Jonas got into the act with his "jacked to the max" necklace.

MIKE'S STORES

From seasons 32 through 36, Fred Armisen starred in an occasional fauxmercial about a guy named Mike who sold stuff like marble columns, marble busts, fountains and chandeliers out of his store at 2941 Central Ave. in Lynbrook. Armisen (who grew up in Valley Stream) had his Lawnguylandese down cold, but he really knew his commercials — those glorious 1-800 CALLNOW! local TV screamathons from back in the last century that bore themselves into viewer brains. "MAWBLE COLUMNS! Elegant, sturdy, and bursting with class! Nothing says power and money like MAWBLE columns! Don't believe me? Ask my dawta [daughter] Lexi [Scarlett Johansson]." Lexi: "You can stick these things everywheh!!" Mike then directed benumbed customers to "Mike's Marbleopolis" on Central Avenue — the same address, incidentally, where he sold lots of other classy junk.

FIRE ISLAND

In 2017, after Logo launched a not-at-all-cliched Kelly Ripa-Mark Consuelo reality show about riotous gay life on that long, famous stretch of beach bordering the Great South Bay, "SNL" was not far behind, in this season 42 promo spoof, which aired that March. It begins with a voice-over, saying, "If you like separating types of people into shows, you’ll love Logo’s other new reality show, 'Cherry Grove,' about a group of affluent lesbians, one beach away!" Cut to the characters played by cast members McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong, Sasheer Zamata, and five-time host Scarlett Johansson burping babies in their beach house in Cherry Grove. The fauxmercial ends with McKinnon's character leaning out a window to bark at neighbors. "Excuse me, sir, can you lower your jazz? There are five miracles of home water birth asleep in this house." Johansson adds: "It's almost 9 p.m.!" The gay publication The Advocate said the Logo series "contributes to Gay America's moral decline," but judged the "SNL" skit "hilarious." (It was, by the way.)

RHONDA WEISS

In 1977, Gilda Radner, one of the true legends of "SNL," and Marilyn Susanne Miller — an "SNL" writer and creative force during the show's early years — created Rhonda Weiss, a parody of a "Jewish American Princess" from Long Island. Rhonda's Island bona fides were established at least a couple of times over her long but sporadic run, which began in the second season and wrapped in the fifth. (Radner, along with the rest of the original "Not Ready for Primetime" cast, left in 1980.) Viewers learned she went to LIU during one sketch, later that she was from Nassau County in easily her best known skit, a Feb. 16, 1980, parody of Jordache Jeans ads called "Jewess Jeans." In this, a slinky Rhonda models "Jewess Jeans ... they're skintight, they're out of sight!" The jingle continues: "She's got a lifestyle uniquely hers ... Europe, Nassau, wholesale furs."

This was controversial at the time — borderline antisemitic, per some critics — but Rhonda didn't start out to offend. Miller, who left "SNL" after the third season, said in a recent podcast that Rhonda was meant to be "a Jewish girl who was attractive and desirable in every way, and Gilda herself was, I believe, known to be Jewish. Before that time, a Jewish girl [on TV] was a shanda [shame or disgrace] but we believed, Gilda and I, that we were young attractive Jewish girls and we shouldn't be second bananas but the star."

1-600-LONG ISLAND 

This commercial parody from Feb. 22, 1997, (season 22, episode 14) took on a couple of fairly easy targets — the Lawn Guyland accent and phone sex lines. "It's the hottest phone sex line this side of the Lawn Guyland Expressway," explains the pitchman played by Alec Baldwin, reclining on a beach while telling viewers to "pick up the phone and dial in for the most erotic sexy babes from Lawnguyland Nooyawk." Ring, ring. "Where are you calling from," asks one "babe." Colin Quinn's character: "I'm calling from Woodmere." "Oooh," says another. "I used to date a guy from Woodmere." Another caller (Darrell Hammond) says he has "gold cards at Neiman Marcus and Loehmann's." "Oooh, I am so turned on," another character (Ana Gasteyer) says. That's about as "erotic" as this particular parody gets. By the time it aired, Baldwin could do no wrong on "SNL." Marking his seventh hosting appearance, this episode once again proved just how versatile a utility player he had become. This "1-600-Long Island" joke worked because most viewers also knew he was a true-blue homegrown Lawn Guyland guy, from Massapequa.

RIDING WITH BILLY JOEL

In late April 2004, Billy Joel crashed his 1967 Citroen into a house in Bayville. Slick roads ... no injuries ... no charges filed ... no evidence of alcohol, according to news reports. Nevertheless, after his third car accident in two years, "SNL" decided to have some fun. In this May 1 sketch, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph and episode host Lindsay Lohan play four tipsy Hamptons' partyers looking for a ride to Russell Simmons' house. But who will give them that ride? In the skit, Poehler's character says she knows "this old guy" she once found sleeping on a table "who will drive us wherever we want." That old and very drunk guy (Horatio Sanz) suddenly arrives: "Hello, ladies! I’ll be your chauffeur tonight. Billy Joel’s my name, driving’s the game! You may also know some of my songs. "Piano Man." "Uptown Girl." "Still Rock and Roll to Me" Nothing? ["Girls" shake their heads] Ah, no biggie. Where are you off to, ladies?" From there, it goes from bad to worse, but they do finally arrive at Simmons' place in one piece.

"SNL" has loved Joel over the decades (he was musical guest four times) while a cast rendition of "Goodnight Saigon" (with guest host Will Ferrell) in a now-classic sketch of the same name closed out the 34th season in 2009.

NY GUBERNATORIAL DEBATE WITH HOWARD STERN

Back in the '90s, when Howard Stern was the King of All Media — and still closely tied to Long Island — he decided to run for New York governor. "SNL" couldn't resist the obvious jokes, so the show devoted the cold open of the May 7, 1994, edition (season 19, episode 19) to a debate between "Stern" — played by a luxuriantly wigged-up Michael McKean (a Sea Cliff native) — and "Mario Cuomo" (Phil Hartman). The open didn't specifically have an Island peg until the very end, when the two held a press conference, with the first question from — any guesses? — a Newsday reporter (Sarah Silverman).

NEW YORK NOW/NATIVITY SCENE

"Welcome to another installment of 'New York Now,' " began the Season 42 news spoof sketch that then threw to "reporter" Kyle Mooney, who introduced viewers to a "very unique nativity pageant bringing the laughs to Long Islanders." Cut then to this unique pageant, with Casey Affleck and Cecily Strong doing their very best attempt at a Long Island accent. McKinnon, also dressed in nativity garb, then says, "I gotta get outta heah — I'm gonna drive home in my lamb-bor-gini" — then picks up the cardboard lamb from the creche (ba-dum.) What made this pageant "special?" Strong's character: "We kept the basic plot then added tons of jokes." Where did this "pageant" originate? A sign behind the cast reads "South Fork Unitarian" — a real church, by the way, off the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton.

JOEY, AMY AND MARYJO

On Jan. 3, 1993, CBS aired the particularly dreadful "Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story" — the same night ABC aired the reprehensible "The Amy Fisher Story," both of which aired just days after NBC's own execrable entry, "Amy Fisher: My Story." On Jan. 9, "SNL" then offered up several comic postscripts: "Aaron Spelling's Amy Fisher 10516” with Melanie Hutsell as Amy, and Danny DeVito as Joey Buttafuoco; "Masterpiece Theater: The House of Buttafuoco," with Mike Myers, Jan Hooks, and DeVito again as JB; "Amy Fisher: One Messed-up Bitch," the "BET" version of this timeless story, with Tim Meadows and Ellen Cleghorne; and "Unbelievable New Breakthroughs: The Amy Fisher Story, “ with Hooks as Mary Jo Buttafuoco, and DeVito as Ron Popeil featuring a "new" spray-on-hair product. "SNL" wasn't done with Joey Buttafuoco just yet. The real deal had a walk-on during the next season (Nov. 17, 1994).

HONORARY MENTION: MORE COWBELL!

The 2000 sketch "More Cowbell" was a core part of "SNL" history while Blue Oyster Cult has been a core part of Long Island's cultural history, so it seems worth considering this question: Was "Cowbell" a sendup of Long Island too?

As BOC/"SNL" fans know, the skit was about the cowbell in "(Don't Fear) the Grim Reaper," a hit song from "Agents of Fortune," BOC's fourth studio album, released in 1976. In the April 8 sketch, Will Ferrell plays (fictitious) bandmember Gene Frenkle, who's got just one job — hit the cowbell ("SNL" cast members Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz fill out the rest of the band.) The cowbell playing does not go well. Parnell's character is dismissive but producer "Bruce Dickinson" (Christopher Walken), who loves the 'bell, supplies the line that would enter pop culture history: "I coulda used a little more cowbell." The skit closes with "IN MEMORY OF GENE FRENKLE, 1950-2000," a nod to the song's theme of mortality.

Long Island is never mentioned but (really) did it have to be? BOC was (and is) so synonymous with Long Island that it's often referred to as "Long Island's own" in news accounts. Formed in 1967 by singer-guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (who wrote "Reaper") and Eric Bloom, both were living in a communal house at Stony Brook University at the time. "We were just middle-class kids from Long Island," Roeser once told Newsday.

But neither Dharma/Roeser (raised in Merrick and Smithtown) or Bloom (Plainview) ever saw "Cowbell" as a poke at their homebase; in fact, it was really a parody of VH1's "Behind the Music."

"I was sitting in my house with Saturday night off, which is rare, watching ['SNL'] live in my family room," Bloom told Newsday's David Criblez in 2014. "It was more of a shock than funny because we were getting sent up by 'SNL.'" Roeser said "my first reaction was relief that they didn't savage the band but I thought it was just hilarious."

Bloom said fans still brought cowbells to their concerts 14 years later: "You wouldn't believe how many people can't play in time."