In a press release, NASA announced that the four crew members from three space agencies will launch to the International Space Station no earlier than spring 2027.

NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Chris Birch will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Makoto Suwa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Arutyun Kiviryan as mission specialists. After docking, Crew-14 will join the space station’s Expedition 75/76.

This mission is the 14th commercial crew rotation with SpaceX under NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program. The crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars and to benefit people on Earth.

This will be Barron’s second flight to the space station. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017. Barron earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge in England. A commander in the U.S. Navy, Barron earned her submarine warfare officer qualification, deploying three times aboard the USS Maine. She first launched to the space station in 2021 aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission, spending a total of 177 days in space across space station Expeditions 66/67. She completed two spacewalks and served as lead robotics operator for another. Most recently, Barron supported the development of new technologies and operational concepts for NASA’s Artemis program.

Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Birch graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with degrees in mathematics and biochemistry and molecular biophysics. She earned a doctorate in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later taught bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside, and scientific writing and communication at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Birch competed as a decorated track cyclist on the U.S. National Team and was named to the Olympic Long Team for the 2020 Tokyo Games. She has served as a capsule communicator, supporting crews aboard the space station and during the Artemis II mission. Birch was crew lead for Expedition 72, working with flight control teams to help manage daily operations, and served as a crew representative for NASA’s Orion Program, supporting Artemis II mission development and operations. This will be her first spaceflight.

The Crew-14 mission also is the first spaceflight assignment for Suwa. Before JAXA selected him as an astronaut candidate in 2023, Suwa spent nearly a decade with the World Bank Group. Previously, he served in Rwanda as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer before joining the United Nations World Meteorological Organization. Suwa holds a doctorate in geosciences from Princeton University and completed basic training to become certified as an astronaut in 2024.

This mission will be Kiviryan’s first trip to the space station. He graduated from Saint Petersburg Suvorov Military School in 2010 and later studied at the Baltic State Technical University. He graduated in 2015 as an engineer specializing in rocket science and completed training in the operation of computer-controlled machines. Kiviryan was selected for the Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Corps in 2021 and has served as a test cosmonaut since 2023.  

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that aren’t possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at: https://www.nasa.gov/station

Skits or Sketches?
Saturday Night Live (SNL) generally refers to its scripted comedy segments as sketches, which is also the standard term within sketch comedy. Online, however, viewers frequently search for and describe them as SNL skits. You will see both terms used here because they refer to the same type of comedy segment in the context of SNL.

There is no shortage of contenders. Some sketches became instant cultural touchstones, while others built their reputations slowly, surviving long after the references around them faded. The funniest SNL skits are not always the biggest or most famous, either. Sometimes the simplest premise, carried by the right performer, is what sticks.

This ranking brings different eras and formats together rather than favoring one generation of the show. Humor matters, but so do the performances, cultural influence, longevity, and the legacy each sketch left behind.

Quick Picks: Best SNL Skits by Category

How We Ranked the Best SNL Skits

There is no formula capable of producing an undisputed list of the best SNL sketches. Comedy is too subjective for that. Instead, this is an editorial ranking built around five factors.

• Humor: Does the sketch remain funny outside the week or era in which it originally aired?
• Performance: How much do the acting, timing, chemistry, delivery, physical comedy, and commitment elevate the material?
• Influence: Did the sketch affect SNL itself, influence comedy elsewhere, or become part of broader pop culture?
• Longevity: Has it aged well enough to keep finding new audiences?
• Legacy: Is it still remembered, referenced, revisited, or discussed when people debate the best skits on SNL?

The bottom portion of a list this strong is not filler. Entries #50 through #31 are excellent sketches that fall slightly short in reach, longevity, or overall consensus. #30 through #16 are major favorites with clear staying power. #15 through #6 are established classics regularly included in conversations about SNL’s greatest work.

And #5 through #1 are the rare sketches that combine memorable performances, lasting humor, influence, recognizability, and cultural staying power at an exceptional level.

What Counts as an SNL Sketch?

For this ranking, a qualifying SNL sketch can be a traditional live scene, cold open, prerecorded comedy piece, fake commercial, Digital Short, or a standalone Weekend Update character appearance.

Recurring ideas are represented only once. Rather than ranking an entire character or franchise, we selected the individual installment that best represents it. Celebrity cameos and host appearances count when they happen within an actual comedy sketch.

Traditional host monologues and ordinary musical-guest performances are excluded. Comedy sketches built around songs, including Digital Shorts, qualify, but standalone musical performances do not.

With the ground rules established, here are the 50 best SNL skits of all time.

50–41: Great SNL Skits That Earned Their Place

We’ll start with sketches that earned their spot through a memorable character, performance, or premise.

50. The Lawrence Welk Show: Introducing the Maharelle Sisters (2008)

• Host: Anne Hathaway
• Featuring: Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, Anne Hathaway, Amy Poehler, Casey Wilson

The Maharelle Sisters look like they belong on an old-fashioned variety show. Each of them is graceful and demure… and then Kristen Wiig joins them as Dooneese and completely wrecks that image. The tiny hands, huge forehead, tone-deaf singing, and strange confidence shouldn’t work as well as they do. Wiig commits so hard that the odd-one-out character becomes funnier every time she appears. Weird, silly, and very hard to forget.

49. Massive Head Wound Harry: The Cocktail Party (1991)

• Host: Linda Hamilton
• Featuring: Dana Carvey, Linda Hamilton, Phil Hartman, Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks, Chris Farley, Siobhan Fallon

There isn’t much mystery to Massive Head Wound Harry. Dana Carvey shows up at a party with a horrific head injury while everyone around him tries not to lose it. That’s basically the sketch, but Carvey sells it by acting completely normal. His utter indifference to it elevates the skit to a ’90s equivalent of the Black Knight from Monty Python (“‘Tis but a scratch!”). The increasingly disgusted reactions do most of the heavy lifting. It’s gross, ridiculous, and exactly the kind of physical comedy that SNL does perfectly.

48. Super Bass-O-Matic ’76 (1976)

• Host: Ron Nessen
• Featuring: Dan Aykroyd, Laraine Newman

Dan Aykroyd doesn’t wink at the audience once here, and that’s why the whole thing lands. He pitches a machine that turns an entire fish into a drink as if he’s selling the greatest kitchen invention ever made. His fast, polished sales delivery makes the stupidity of the product even better. It also helped establish the fake commercial as one of SNL’s most reliable weapons, which is impressive considering the product here is, quite literally, fish in a blender.

47. Coneheads on Family Feud (1978)

• Host: Steve Martin
• Featuring: Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Gilda Radner, John Belushi

The Coneheads were already funny on their own, but dropping them into Family Feud gives the idea more room to play. Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman answer ordinary questions while behaving like a completely normal family, at least in their minds. The game-show format makes their oddness stand out even more. It’s one of the smarter ways SNL reused a recurring character without simply repeating old material. If you like to refer to your sandwich as “organically inactive meat or vegetable matter between two starch planes,” this one’s for you!

46. Landshark (“Candygram”) (1975)

• Host: Candice Bergen
• Featuring: Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Candice Bergen, Garrett Morris

A shark knocks on someone’s door and tries to smooth-talk its way inside. That’s the whole setup, and somehow SNL keeps squeezing laughs out of it. The excuses become more ridiculous every time, while the person inside keeps falling for them. Better yet, the sketch aired the same year Jaws came out. The bit is stupid in exactly the right way, and the lilting delivery of “Candygram…” did the rest.

45. President Bill Clinton at McDonald’s (1992)

• Host: Tom Arnold
• Featuring: Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Kevin Nealon, Tim Meadows, Melanie Hutsell, Ellen Cleghorne, Tom Arnold, Julia Sweeney, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock

Phil Hartman’s Clinton feels especially funny away from the White House. Here, he’s in a McDonald’s, chatting with customers and casually stealing food off their trays. Hartman gets plenty out of the impression without relying on one voice or mannerism. His Clinton is relaxed, ravenous, charming, and completely comfortable around strangers. The politics are dated; the sight of the president casually raiding someone else’s fries really isn’t.

44. What Up With That?: James Franco and White Pete (2009)

• Host: Gerard Butler
• Featuring: Kenan Thompson, Gerard Butler, James Franco, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Abby Elliott, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Jenny Slate, Nasim Pedrad

The guests are technically there to be interviewed, but Kenan Thompson’s Diondre Cole has other plans. Every conversation gets interrupted by another burst of music, dancing, and the show’s absurdly catchy theme. Kenan’s energy is the engine, but Jason Sudeikis running in to dance like his life depends on it is almost as important. You know the interview is doomed the second the music starts, and waiting for it to go completely off the rails becomes half the fun (if not all the fun).

43. Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car (1989)

• Host: Steve Martin
• Featuring: Steve Martin, Victoria Jackson, Kevin Nealon

Toonces can drive. Technically. The problem is that he’s absolutely terrible at it, probably because he’s a kitty. Admittedly, that’s a fairly important deficiency when operating a motor vehicle. SNL takes that wonderfully stupid idea and plays it completely straight, with the humans treating a driving cat like some kind of miracle right up until the inevitable disaster occurs. You can understand the entire premise in about five seconds, which is probably why Toonces stuck around as long as he did.

42. Weekend Update: Roseanne Roseannadanna on Smoking (1978)

• Host: Carrie Fisher
• Featuring: Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray

Gilda Radner didn’t need much time to make Roseanne Roseannadanna take over the desk. A simple topic about smoking quickly turns into one of her long, strange stories full of unnecessary details. Radner’s voice and timing make the character. She sounds completely certain that every tangent matters. More importantly, Roseanne helped show that Weekend Update characters could become just as memorable as those from the show’s standard sketches.

41. Coffee Talk: Liz Rosenberg and Barbra Streisand (1992)

• Hosts: Roseanne Arnold and Tom Arnold
• Featuring: Mike Myers, Madonna, Roseanne Arnold, Barbra Streisand, Julia Sweeney, Adam Sandler

Linda Richman already worships Barbra Streisand, so having the real Streisand suddenly appear feels like the only possible way this sketch could get bigger. Mike Myers stays in character while the joke practically becomes real around him. This isn’t just celebrity stunt casting, either; after years of Richman treating Streisand like a deity, the cameo feels less like a guest spot than divine intervention.

40–31: Fan Favorites With Lasting Appeal

These sketches found a loyal audience and kept people coming back long after they first aired.

40. The Roxbury Guys at the China Club with Jim Carrey (1996)

• Host: Jim Carrey
• Featuring: Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey joining Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan feels almost too perfect. He doesn’t just copy their iconic head-bobbing routine. He throws himself into it with the same ridiculous confidence and awkward nightclub energy. Most of the laughs come from movement rather than dialogue, especially when all three start moving in sync. Carrey understands the joke immediately, which makes the whole bit feel bigger without changing what already worked.

39. Beavis and Butt-Head (2024)

• Host: Ryan Gosling
• Featuring: Heidi Gardner, Kenan Thompson, Ryan Gosling, Mikey Day

This sketch really takes off the second Heidi Gardner turns around and sees Mikey Day. The makeup already makes Day and Ryan Gosling look strangely close to Beavis and Butt-Head, but Gardner breaking is what sent the whole thing viral almost immediately. Being so new, though, it is still too early to know whether it will last like some of the older classics on this list.

38. Diner Lobster (2018)

• Host: John Mulaney
• Featuring: John Mulaney, Pete Davidson, Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong

Pete Davidson orders lobster at a diner, which is questionable enough on its own. Then the sketch turns that tiny decision into a full-blown Les Misérables-style musical. Kenan Thompson plays the doomed crustacean with roughly the gravity of storming the barricades in revolutionary France. The stakes could not be smaller, and everyone involved performs as though someone’s entire life is falling apart.

37. Mom Jeans (2003)

• Host: Adrien Brody
• Featuring: Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Chris Parnell

There is almost no explanation needed with Mom Jeans. You see the clothes and immediately know what SNL is making fun of. The fake commercial presents the jeans with the same cheerful confidence used to sell trendy fashion, even though everything about the look is deliberately unflattering. That simple contrast carries the whole sketch. It also helps that the joke is based on something people actually recognize outside SNL.

36. Samurai Hotel (1975)

• Host: Richard Pryor
• Featuring: John Belushi, Richard Pryor, Chevy Chase

John Belushi and Richard Pryor turn a basic hotel interaction into a sword fight, and neither of them treats it like a throwaway gag. Belushi is all sharp movements and wild intensity, while Pryor gives him just as much back. The sketch is mostly physical, so you don’t need much context. Watching the two performers try to outdo each other is enough.

35. Meet Your Second Wife (2015)

• Hosts: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
• Featuring: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Bobby Moynihan, Taran Killam, Kenan Thompson

The title gives away the joke, but not how uncomfortable it gets. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey calmly introduce married men to their supposed future wives, and each reveal becomes worse than the one before it. The hosts never act shocked, which makes everything even stranger. What starts like a silly game show slowly turns into something much darker. The sketch keeps pushing until the audience is laughing and cringing at the same time.

34. Career Day (2018)

• Host: Adam Driver
• Featuring: Adam Driver, Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, Alex Moffat, Ego Nwodim, Melissa Villaseñor

Adam Driver plays Abraham H. Parnassus like he’s delivering the most important speech of his life. The setting is just a school career day, but Driver behaves as though he’s in some huge historical drama. Naturally, this is an insane amount of gravitas to bring to a room full of students and parents. He shouts, stares people down, and gives every line far more weight than it needs. The sketch would fall apart with a softer performance. Driver never gives it one.

33. Cobras & Panthers (1996)

• Host: Robert Downey Jr.
• Featuring: Norm Macdonald, Robert Downey Jr., Jim Breuer, Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, Chris Kattan, Mark McKinney, Tim Meadows, Colin Quinn

A gang rivalry played like an old Broadway musical sounds strange because it is. As a clear jab at West Side Story, Cobras & Panthers leans all the way into that mismatch, mixing tough-guy posturing with singing, choreography, and theatrical drama. It never became one of the show’s biggest crossover hits, but fans who dig through older SNL material still remember it. The material is absurd, but nobody performs it as though they know that, which is exactly what keeps the whole thing from collapsing into nonsense.

32. The Sinatra Group (1991)

• Host: Sting
• Featuring: Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Sting, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Victoria Jackson

Phil Hartman’s Frank Sinatra doesn’t really host a discussion. He attacks it. Every guest gets interrupted, mocked, or pushed aside while Hartman’s Sinatra dominates the room. The other celebrity impressions help create the chaos, but he is clearly the center of it. Hartman’s Sinatra is loud, impatient, and completely convinced he’s the smartest man in the room, mostly because he never gives anyone else enough time to prove otherwise.

31. The Chris Farley Show with Paul McCartney (1993)

• Host: Alec Baldwin
• Featuring: Chris Farley, Paul McCartney

Chris Farley sits across from Paul McCartney and immediately looks like he can’t believe his luck. He struggles through questions, loses confidence halfway through them, and keeps turning simple comments into uncomfortable pauses. McCartney barely has to do anything; his calmness only makes Farley look more terrified. Farley isn’t really interviewing a Beatle so much as trying desperately not to fall apart in front of one.

30–21: SNL Favorites With Serious Staying Power

Now the list moves into sketches that have held up especially well over time.

30. Men’s Synchronized Swimming (1984)

• Host: None
• Featuring: Harry Shearer, Martin Short, Christopher Guest

Martin Short and Harry Shearer approach men’s synchronized swimming with the seriousness of athletes chasing Olympic gold. There’s one fairly major problem: Short’s character can barely swim. The mock-documentary style never treats that as a reason to quit, which makes the whole thing better. Christopher Guest plays the coach straight, too. Decades later, the joke remains wonderfully airtight: Olympic-sized ambition, one very small swimming problem.

29. The Shooting (“Dear Sister”) (2007)

• Host: Shia LaBeouf
• Featuring: Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig

One shooting would have made the point. Dear Sister keeps going. Every new gunshot brings back Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek,” another slow-motion reaction, and even more unnecessary drama. The short was spoofing The O.C., but the joke quickly escaped that reference. People began making their own versions online, helping turn the “Mmm whatcha say” moment into a meme well beyond SNL.

28. The Californians: Stuart Has Cancer (2012)

• Host: Josh Brolin
• Featuring: Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Josh Brolin

Nobody on The Californians can simply explain where they’ve been. First, they need to give you every freeway and exit they took to get there. Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader pile absurd accents and driving directions onto what already looks like an overdramatic soap opera. The cast struggling not to laugh only adds to it. Somehow, all that nonsense became one of the era’s most recognizable recurring sketches.

27. Weekend Update: Stefon on Halloween’s Hottest Tips (2012)

• Host: Bruno Mars
• Featuring: Bill Hader, Seth Meyers

Bill Hader’s Stefon can recommend a nightclub with a straight face no matter how bizarre the description gets. That’s impressive considering the Halloween suggestions here include hobo-cops, human piñatas, and Sidney Applebaum. Seth Meyers mostly has to sit there and react while Hader fights through his own laughter. Those breaks never ruin the bit, though. If anything, watching Hader lose control became part of why audiences loved him.

26. Star Wars Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base (2016)

• Host: Adam Driver
• Featuring: Adam Driver, Taran Killam, Bobby Moynihan, Leslie Jones

Kylo Ren is terrifying right up until he puts on a blond wig and introduces himself as Matt, a radar technician. Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base takes the familiar reality-TV formula and drops it into Star Wars without overthinking the crossover. Adam Driver is the key. He plays Kylo’s terrible attempt at behaving like an ordinary employee with the same intensity he brings to the actual character.

Star Wars Gets Even Weirder?
SNL isn’t the only place Star Wars has been turned into comedy. The Bass Windu and Obi Dawg Star Wars parody turns familiar Jedi characters into a ridiculous music video, while the Lightsaber Peacock Spider goes much smaller by giving a real spider its own miniature Star Wars battle.

25. The Church Lady with Sigourney Weaver (1986)

• Host: Sigourney Weaver
• Featuring: Dana Carvey, Sigourney Weaver, Christopher Durang, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn, Phil Hartman (voice-over)

Dana Carvey’s Church Lady doesn’t need much time to decide what’s wrong with her guests, and somehow Satan is usually involved. Carvey built the character around judgmental smiles, exaggerated politeness, and catchphrases that audiences quickly knew were coming. Church Chat debuted in 1986 and kept returning for years. That recognizability matters: the Church Lady became bigger than a single sketch and one of Carvey’s defining SNL characters.

24. Weekend Update: Jane, You Ignorant Slut (1978)

• Host: Christopher Lee
• Featuring: Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd

Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd turn a serious television-debate format into something far more childish. The topic almost stops mattering once the two begin attacking each other personally. That’s the joke: polite political commentary disappears, and open hostility takes over. Their delivery made the insults stick, and the format became one of early SNL’s most recognizable Weekend Update bits.

23. Papyrus (2017)

• Host: Ryan Gosling
• Featuring: Ryan Gosling, Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, Chris Redd, Heidi Gardner

Ryan Gosling’s character is haunted by one question: why did Avatar use the Papyrus font as its logo? That tiny design complaint is treated like unresolved psychological trauma, complete with sleepless nights, investigation, and a growing obsession with the mystery. Gosling plays every moment seriously, which makes the overreaction even better. Somehow, one questionable font choice becomes enough material for a full psychological thriller. That’s an impressive return on investment. Feature-film version of this premise, when, SNL?!

22. Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (1991)

• Host: Macaulay Culkin
• Featuring: Phil Hartman, Siobhan Fallon, Dana Carvey

Phil Hartman’s caveman claims the modern world frightens and confuses him. Conveniently, that confusion disappears whenever he needs to persuade a jury. Hartman plays him as a polished lawyer who knows exactly how useful the caveman routine can be. That contradiction gave the character somewhere to go beyond the original joke, and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer kept returning throughout Hartman’s time on the show.

21. Washington’s Dream (2023)

• Host: Nate Bargatze
• Featuring: Nate Bargatze, Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day, James Austin Johnson, Bowen Yang

Nate Bargatze’s George Washington has a vision for his new country, and apparently that vision includes a measurement system nobody should expect to understand. Barely changing expression, he explains miles, feet, pounds, gallons, and other American quirks to increasingly confused soldiers, as though the entire baffling system were handed down from on high. It’s still a relatively recent sketch, but it has already become one of SNL’s defining modern bits.

20–11: SNL Sketches That Became Classics

At this point, being funny isn’t enough. These sketches lasted because a character, line, performance, or idea kept living long after the original episode.

20. The Olympia Restaurant: Cheeseburger, Chips and Pepsi (1978)

• Host: Robert Klein
• Featuring: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Robert Klein

An ordinary restaurant order becomes its own strange language in The Olympia Restaurant. John Belushi’s Pete keeps pushing the same limited menu: cheeseburgers, chips, and Pepsi, whether customers like it or not. The repetition should wear thin, but Belushi’s impatience keeps giving it new energy. What began as a diner gag became one of those early SNL routines people could imitate with just a few words.

19. Two Wild & Crazy Guys: Computer Dates (1978)

• Host: Steve Martin
• Featuring: Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman

Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd’s Festrunk brothers have almost no understanding of what makes someone attractive, yet they approach every woman with unstoppable confidence. The matching clothes, strange accents, and exaggerated swagger make the pair funny before much even happens. Their chemistry carried the recurring bit, while the “wild and crazy guys” phrase escaped the sketches and entered pop culture on its own.

18. Bill Swerski’s Super Fans: Da Bears in the Indy 500 (1991)

• Host: George Wendt
• Featuring: George Wendt, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Robert Smigel

George Wendt’s Bob Swerski and the Super Fans are so devoted to Da Bears that football eventually stops being enough. Here, the group wonders how Chicago would fare in the Indianapolis 500 and, naturally, decides the Bears would dominate that too. Wendt, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, and Robert Smigel shovel down food, lay the Chicago accent on thick, and make increasingly ridiculous predictions with the confidence of men who have never once considered being wrong. The premise is gloriously stupid, but “Da Bears” became much bigger than a single sketch, and Wendt remains the face most closely tied to SNL’s ultimate Chicago sports obsessives.

17. Haunted Elevator Featuring David S. Pumpkins (2016)

• Host: Tom Hanks
• Featuring: Tom Hanks, Kenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Beck Bennett, Mikey Day, Bobby Moynihan

The funniest thing about David S. Pumpkins may be that the sketch refuses to tell us what he actually is. Tom Hanks appears in a pumpkin-covered suit, dances with two skeletons, asks a question, and disappears. The confused riders want an explanation. None comes. That lack of logic became the appeal, eventually giving the character repeat appearances and even a Halloween special.

16. A Non-Partisan Message From Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton (2008)

• Host: Michael Phelps
• Featuring: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler

Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton stand together to address sexism and their very different places in the 2008 presidential election. Fey’s resemblance to Palin gave the sketch an immediate visual hook, but Poehler’s increasingly frustrated Clinton is just as important to the pairing. It aired September 13, 2008, during a campaign in which Palin was John McCain’s running mate, and Clinton supported Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

15. White Like Me (1984)

• Host: Eddie Murphy
• Featuring: Eddie Murphy, Jim Downey

Eddie Murphy goes undercover as a white man and discovers a completely different world once Black people supposedly leave the room. The setup gives Murphy space to push the premise further with each encounter, from drink service on the bus to no-questions-asked loans. The escalating absurdity gets the laughs, but the social satire is why White Like Me is still discussed decades later. Murphy’s deadpan documentary narration keeps everything just straight enough as each new discovery becomes more ridiculous than the last. It remains one of the sharpest pieces of social satire from Murphy’s SNL run.

14. Lazy Sunday (2005)

• Host: Jack Black
• Featuring: Andy Samberg, Chris Parnell

Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rap with enormous seriousness about getting cupcakes and going to see The Chronicles of Narnia on a lazy Sunday. Style and subject matter crash delightfully in the chorus: “The Chronic – what?! – cles of Narnia.” The contrast was funny enough on television, but what happened afterward mattered even more. Lazy Sunday spread rapidly online in December 2005 and became an early viral SNL hit, helping establish the Digital Shorts as something viewers could discover beyond Saturday night.

That path would later make room for plenty of other shareable music comedy, including SNL’s “What Does My Girl Say?” parody. And for an even stranger collision of comedy and music, the Muppets rapping a Beastie Boys song is exactly what it sounds like.

13. Buh-Weet Sings (1981)

• Host: Susan Saint James
• Featuring: Eddie Murphy

Context is everything for this one. Here, Eddie Murphy is parodying Buckwheat from Our Gang, later widely syndicated as The Little Rascals. If you’re not familiar, this one may not hit. The fun comes from hearing familiar titles and lyrics transformed through Buckwheat’s delivery, while the ad presents the whole thing as completely legitimate. Buh-Weet Sings helped turn the character into one of Murphy’s early SNL signatures and showed how easily he could carry a sketch by himself.

12. NPR’s Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls (1998)

• Host: Alec Baldwin
• Featuring: Alec Baldwin, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon

Some of SNL’s most iconic sketches revolve around a stupid pun. Nobody raises their voice in Schweddy Balls, and that is exactly how it should be. Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon keep the NPR parody painfully calm while Alec Baldwin’s Pete Schweddy discusses his holiday delicacy. The double entendres keep piling up, yet all three behave as if there is nothing remotely funny about them. That deadpan commitment turned one simple joke into a sketch audiences still revisit every December.

11. Chippendales Audition (1990)

• Host: Patrick Swayze
• Featuring: Chris Farley, Patrick Swayze, Kevin Nealon, Mike Myers, Jan Hooks

Chris Farley doesn’t hold anything back opposite hunky heartthrob Patrick Swayze as they both compete to become Chippendales dancers. He dances with such confidence and physical commitment that the audition becomes much more than a simple mismatch between the two men. It helped establish Farley as a fearless physical performer. The premise has also drawn criticism in later years over how heavily it relies on his body for laughs, a debate that remains part of the sketch’s legacy.

10–6: Among the Greatest SNL Skits Ever

Once the list reaches the top 10 funniest SNL skits, the differences get smaller. These aren’t here just because they produced a big laugh once. Each has survived through characters, quotes, repeat viewing, or performances that are difficult to separate from SNL history.

10. Close Encounter (2015)

• Host: Ryan Gosling
• Featuring: Kate McKinnon, Ryan Gosling, Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, Bobby Moynihan

Kate McKinnon starts Close Encounter in the same room as everyone else, but before long her blunt, chain-smoking Colleen Rafferty has hijacked the entire sketch.

Ryan Gosling and Cecily Strong recount extraordinary, almost wholesome alien encounters. Rafferty apparently met very different aliens. McKinnon’s story gets stranger, cruder, and more specific with every answer, while Gosling spends much of the sketch visibly fighting for his life not to laugh.

That gives Close Encounter two kinds of comedy at once: the escalating indignities of Rafferty’s story and the live tension of waiting for somebody to break. Gosling eventually obliges, but the sketch never loses its shape around him. Rafferty returned repeatedly after this December 2015 debut, and it’s easy to see why: McKinnon found a character who could turn one terrible extraterrestrial experience into an entire recurring bit.

9. Word Association (1975)

• Host: Richard Pryor
• Featuring: Richard Pryor, Chevy Chase

There is almost nothing around Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase here. Two men sit across from each other during a job interview and Chase initiates a word association, which quickly escalates into the two exchanging racial slurs and stereotypes.

The laughter comes with real tension, which is why Word Association still feels different from most live sketches of its era. Pryor’s reactions and Chase’s increasingly provocative interviewer push the scene somewhere uncomfortable without losing its structure. The salary negotiation at the end caps the whole thing perfectly.

Aired during SNL’s first season in December 1975, it remains heavily discussed because the sketch used escalation not simply to shock, but to expose hostility sitting underneath an ordinary workplace interaction.

8. Black Jeopardy! with Tom Hanks (2016)

• Host: Tom Hanks
• Featuring: Kenan Thompson, Tom Hanks, Sasheer Zamata, Leslie Jones

In a classic odd-man-out setup, Tom Hanks’ redneck-coded Doug seems like he has wandered onto the wrong game show when he joins a game of Black Jeopardy! Then he starts getting the answers.

Kenan Thompson’s Darnell Hayes slowly realizes that Doug shares more everyday experiences with the other African American contestants than anyone expected. That discovery gives Black Jeopardy! something more interesting than a string of easy stereotypes.

The sketch keeps finding laughs in cultural overlap, then carefully reminds the audience that those similarities have limits. Thompson controls the tone throughout, while Hanks never pushes Doug into a cartoon. Years later, it remains one of the best-remembered installments of the recurring Black Jeopardy! format.

7. Debbie Downer: Disney World (2004)

• Host: Lindsay Lohan
• Featuring: Rachel Dratch, Lindsay Lohan, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Horatio Sanz

Rachel Dratch can kill the mood in seconds as Debbie Downer, and nowhere does she do it better than Disney World.

Every cheerful conversation becomes an excuse for Debbie to introduce disease, tragedy, or another miserable fact, followed by that sad-trombone sound. Eventually, the cast starts losing the fight to stay in character. Jimmy Fallon breaks. Dratch breaks. The laughter spreads across the table.

Normally, that could wreck a live sketch. Here it makes the whole thing better. Debbie Downer became instantly recognizable because the character was so simple: everyone has met somebody who can somehow find the worst possible thing to say at the happiest possible moment.

6. Wayne’s World: Aerosmith (1990)

• Host: Tom Hanks
• Featuring: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tom Hanks, Aerosmith

Mike Myers and Dana Carvey already had something special in Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar. Putting Aerosmith in Wayne’s basement simply gave the characters their dream guests.

Myers’ overconfident Wayne and Carvey’s nervous Garth bounce off each other so naturally that the sketch feels less written than lived in. Aerosmith showing up only makes their amateur cable-access show seem more wonderfully absurd.

More importantly, Wayne’s World didn’t remain an SNL curiosity. Wayne and Garth became recognizable well outside the show, eventually making the jump to movies. This 1990 installment captures the chemistry that made that possible before the franchise became much bigger.

The 5 Best SNL Skits of All Time

These five rise above a crowded list because the joke didn’t end when the episode did. Each one produced something audiences kept carrying with them: a song, a character, a catchphrase, or a performance that became permanently tied to the show.

5. Dick in a Box (2006)

• Host: Justin Timberlake
• Featuring: Andy Samberg, Justin Timberlake, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig

Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake take the look and unbearable sincerity of early-’90s R&B videos and apply it to an idea that gets funnier precisely because the performers refuse to admit how stupid it is.

The matching suits, soft-focus music-video style, choreography, and completely earnest singing make Dick in a Box feel far more produced than the joke requires. That’s part of its charm.

Like Lazy Sunday, it also showed how SNL comedy could live online instead of depending entirely on the original broadcast. The December 2006 Digital Short became a major viral hit and later won an Emmy for its music and lyrics.

For more on how it came together, see the story behind “Dick in a Box.” The sketch belongs this high because its influence goes beyond a memorable song. It helped cement the Digital Short as one of SNL’s defining comedy formats of the internet era.

4. Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood: Nutrition (1983)

• Host: Teri Garr
• Featuring: Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy takes the warm, reassuring structure of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and drops it into a neighborhood where Mister Robinson has much bigger problems than whether you’re feeling sad today.

In Nutrition, Mister Robinson discusses eating properly on a budget, although his approach to acquiring groceries is hardly something Mister Rogers would recommend. Murphy’s relaxed delivery is essential. He speaks directly to the camera with such warmth that the harder edges of the satire sneak up on you.

Mister Robinson lasted because the character could do more than parody one television host. The format gave Murphy a way to talk about money, crime, housing, and life in the neighborhood while still working as broad comedy.

That mix of character work and social satire makes it one of the strongest showcases of why Eddie Murphy became so central to SNL during the early 1980s.

3. Celebrity Jeopardy!: French Stewart, Burt Reynolds & Sean Connery (1999)

• Host: Norm Macdonald
• Featuring: Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, Norm Macdonald, Jimmy Fallon

Will Ferrell’s Alex Trebek is surrounded by three celebrity guests determined to make his job impossible.

Jimmy Fallon plays a hopelessly confused French Stewart. Norm Macdonald returns as Burt Reynolds, now interested in oversized hats and calling himself Turd Ferguson. Then there is Darrell Hammond’s Sean Connery, whose main goal appears to be tormenting Trebek rather than answering anything correctly.

The sketch earns its place this high because every character adds something different. Ferrell gives the chaos a straight man. Macdonald wanders off into his own world. Hammond’s Connery keeps finding new ways to attack Trebek.

And the format can be watched again without needing much knowledge of the celebrities being impersonated. The chemistry became bigger than the impressions themselves. Even among countless recurring SNL concepts, Celebrity Jeopardy! remains unusually quotable and easy to revisit.

2. Matt Foley: Van Down by the River (1993)

• Host: Christina Applegate
• Featuring: Chris Farley, Christina Applegate, David Spade, Phil Hartman, Julia Sweeney

Chris Farley doesn’t enter this sketch so much as crash into it.

Matt Foley is supposed to scare two teenagers, played by Christina Applegate and David Spade, into making better choices. The problem is that Foley himself is a disaster. He’s loud, bitter, divorced, and, famously, lives in a van down by the river.

Farley’s physicality pushes everything higher. He yanks up his pants, gets directly into people’s faces, throws his body around the room, and eventually destroys the furniture. Watch Applegate and Spade and you can see how hard it is for them to hold it together.

Plenty of live sketches have great lines. This one feels as though the performer could overwhelm the script at any second.

That’s why Matt Foley sits at #2. The catchphrase lasted, but Farley’s commitment is the real legacy. It is one of the clearest examples in SNL history of a performer taking complete ownership of a character in front of a live audience.

1. More Cowbell (2000)

• Host: Christopher Walken
• Featuring: Will Ferrell, Christopher Walken, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz

The premise is almost embarrassingly small. Blue Öyster Cult is recording “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” and Christopher Walken’s producer decides the song needs more cowbell.

That’s it.

Then Will Ferrell turns Gene Frenkle into a man seemingly incapable of giving that cowbell anything less than everything he has. He pounds away, flails around the studio, irritates his increasingly miserable bandmates, and keeps going because Walken’s producer wants even more. Jimmy Fallon visibly struggles to keep it together. Ferrell just keeps hammering.

The genius is that the sketch never really needs a second idea. It simply makes the same demand bigger and dumber until the phrase “More cowbell” escapes the studio entirely. The phrase became pop-culture shorthand, appeared on merchandise, and even became permanently tangled up with the real song’s legacy.

Plenty of SNL sketches have a great line. Plenty have an all-in performance. More Cowbell has both, and its central joke still works even if you’ve never heard of Blue Öyster Cult.

That is what puts it at #1.

What Makes the Best SNL Skits Last?

There isn’t one SNL formula that produces a classic.

Matt Foley is powered by physical comedy. White Like Me uses social satire. Papyrus turns a tiny observation into absurd obsession. Schweddy Balls survives on deadpan wordplay. Lazy Sunday and Dick in a Box helped push prerecorded comedy into a new online era, while Celebrity Jeopardy! gets its strength from character chemistry and impressions.

The formats are all over the place, and that’s probably the point.

The strongest sketches stop belonging only to the episode in which they aired. A phrase gets repeated at work. A character returns at an anniversary special. Someone who wasn’t watching SNL in 1993 still knows what it means to live “in a van down by the river.” A new audience finds Close Encounter or Black Jeopardy! years later through clips.

That’s the difference between something funny on Saturday night and something that becomes part of SNL history.

It is also why More Cowbell, Matt Foley, and Celebrity Jeopardy! finish so high here. Each one still makes sense without much explanation; each is built around a performance people remember, and each left something behind after the applause stopped.

Feature Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Anthony Quintano

A press release from TENNIIX disclosed that the ULTRA MAX tennis playing robot integrates the TENNIIX PRO AI tennis training system with LimX Dynamics’ TRON 2 mobility platform. 

Thus the demonstration at the Jean King Cup finals brought together advanced tennis intelligence and robotic mobility to explore a new model of sports training.

On court with Chinese tennis player Wang Qiang, ULTRA MAX delivered challenging topspin shots and high, deep looping balls, varying placement to move her around the court. The demanding exchanges highlighted the system’s ball quality and ability to create sustained pressure, giving even a professional player a challenging workout.

TENNIIX provides perception and decision-making capabilities that operate without external sensing equipment. Its system tracks ball trajectories, spin and landing points, detects player positioning and movement, and receives training instructions through intelligent voice interaction. Adaptive AI adjusts subsequent deliveries based on the quality of players’ returns, generating varied patterns including fast serves, short balls, heavy topspin and slices.

LimX Dynamics contributes a wheeled-leg robotic platform supporting multidirectional movement, turning, rapid stops and stable positioning. Its adjustable structure enables delivery heights from 1.2 to 1.6 meters, combining movement and height variation for more dynamic practice.

Together, these technologies point toward a shift from preset ball-feeding drills to responsive training that challenges players’ movement, shot selection and consistency.

TENNIIX’s broader ambition is to make the benefits of AI tangible in everyday sport. By addressing difficulties such as finding an available, suitably matched practice partner, the company aims to give more players access to engaging, adaptable training. Future deployment of ULTRA MAX across tennis clubs and facilities is intended to complement coaching, expand practice opportunities and improve the on-court experience.

Both companies are based in Shenzhen, drawing on the city’s robotics and engineering ecosystem. ULTRA MAX is also planned for exhibition during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings, showcasing how embodied AI can move from technology demonstrations into practical sports applications.

At its core, AlphaGenome Atlas is a platform containing predictions for the effects of 9 billion single-nucleotide variants — every single-letter change possible — in the human genome, according to DeepMind news.

AlphaGenome Atlas works like a giant biological dictionary. It contains predictions for all 9 billion possible single-letter DNA changes in the human genome. Testing these mutations individually in a lab would take decades – but DeepMind precomputed every result so researchers can instantly look up how any mutation alters cell behavior.

To make this massive dataset easy to navigate, DeepMind introduced the AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score. This score combines predictions from two AI models into a single number that ranks how dangerous a genetic change might be. It works for both the 2% of our DNA that makes proteins – and the remaining 98% that controls gene activity.

Scientists are already using the atlas to solve medical mysteries. In rare disease research, scientists used the AVI score to find a hidden genetic mistake in a gene linked to severe childhood epilepsy. Laboratory tests confirmed that the AI accurately predicted how the mutation disrupted normal cell instructions.

The tool also helps researchers study common health conditions across large populations. By analyzing genetic data from over 54,000 people, scientists uncovered 22% more genetic links than traditional methods could detect. This approach helps identify specific non-coding variants connected to aging, oxygen processing, and body mass index.

AlphaGenome Atlas is available for free to academic researchers through an online website portal, an API, and Google Antigravity. By making 1 petabyte of genetic predictions accessible to everyone, DeepMind aims to speed up medical discoveries and help create new treatments for genetic disorders.

According to a press release from Red Bull, the world’s best cliff divers will return to Polignano a Mare, Italy from September 25 to 27.

And so, after four stops across three continents, the 2026 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series title fight comes down to one final competition, where a three-way battle for the men’s King Kahekili Trophy will take centre stage at the season finale.

While Australia’s Rhiannan Iffland secured her record-extending 10th overall World Series title with one stop to spare in Mostar, the men’s competition remains wide open. Just 13 points separate World Series leader Aidan Heslop, James Lichtenstein and 2023 overall winner Constantin Popovici ahead of the final four dives of the season.

For 2024 winner Heslop, a second World Series title would complete a remarkable comeback campaign. The Brit returned to competition as a wildcard in 2026 following a year-long injury hiatus and now has the opportunity to become the second male athlete after Gary Hunt to win the overall title more than once. It would also make him only the second wildcard to claim the men’s King Kahekili Trophy, following Hunt’s achievement in 2025.

Lichtenstein, meanwhile, arrives in Italy with the chance to make history for the USA. After becoming the first American man to win at home after last season’s Boston finale and successfully defending the win on home turf once again at the St. Petersburg leg in Florida in June, the 2026 season has seen the 31-year-old establish himself as a genuine title contender. Victory overall would make him the first American male to win the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.

Popovici remains firmly in the equation, too. The Romanian, who lifted the King Kahekili Trophy in 2023, has the same opportunity to repeat his success as his British rival. Heading to Polignano a Mare following a season that included two victories and a podium finish, he claims that the pressure is on the two athletes ahead of him. However, another title remains within reach.

Hunt is only two points behind the top four divers in the overall standings, which would earn him automatic qualification for a permanent diver’s spot next season. Another milestone in the extraordinary career of the 42-year-old Frenchman is approaching.

Iffland returns to her winning ground

Although the women’s overall title has already been decided, there is still plenty at stake when Iffland returns to the location where she has been virtually unbeatable.

The 35-year-old Aussie is the only woman in this year’s line-up to have won a World Series competition in Polignano a Mare. Beginning her remarkable streak in 2017, Iffland has claimed victory at the venue in each of its nine past editions in the World Series. Already the record holder for the most individual victories in Italy across both the women’s and men’s competitions, she now has the opportunity to make it 10 wins at the same location.

Polignano a Mare will also mark a milestone appearance for the 10-time overall winner as she takes to the platform for her 60th World Series start.

She will once again face strong competition from Canadians Molly Carlson and Simone Leathead, as well as US diver Kaylea Arnett – all of whom have secured their places for 2027 going into the final. Meanwhile, Xantheia Pennisi (AUS) is just six points behind fourth place and will have one last chance to secure an automatic place on the roster next season, edging out one of her rivals in the process.

A finale in the heart of the action

Few locations are as closely intertwined with the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series as Polignano a Mare. First visited in 2009, the spectacular Adriatic town stages the World Series’ 14th competition and will host the season finale for the third time, following 2018 and 2021.

The way in which the competition unfolds in the heart of the town itself is what really sets it apart from other locations in the World Series. Athletes make their way through Polignano a Mare’s narrow streets and crowds to reach the diving locations, while spectators gather on balconies, cliff edges, the beach and the historic bridge to watch the action unfold.

The athletes launch from private properties and balconies, turning the town’s distinctive architecture and cliffside setting into an integral part of the competition. The first round starts on a private balcony adjoining a bedroom, after which the competition moves to the platforms on a rooftop terrace for rounds two to four.

This year, three Italian divers – Elisa Cosetti, Andrea Barnaba and Davide Baraldi – will compete at their home stop, adding another local connection to one of the most passionately supported events on the calendar.

One last test

The finale will bring together the season’s established permanent athletes and an unprecedented pool of talent in the men’s competition, where eight wildcards will take on just four permanent divers.

With Heslop, Lichtenstein and Popovici separated by only a few points, every position – and potentially every individual dive score – could prove decisive in the battle for the King Kahekili Trophy.

For one last time in 2026, the world’s best cliff divers will step onto the 21 and 27 metre platforms. And in Polignano a Mare, where the streets, balconies and cliffs become part of the competition, the season will come to its conclusion with one title still waiting to be decided.

Wildcards in Polignano a Mare (women, men): Elisa Cosetti (ITA), Stella Forsyth (AUS), Morgane Herculano (SUI), Iris Schmidbauer (GER); Davide Baraldi (ITA), Andrea Barnaba (ITA), Nikita Fedotov (ARM), Michael Foisy (CAN), Miguel Garcia (COL), Sergio Guzman (MEX), Aidan Heslop (GBR), Yolotl Martinez (MEX).

Standings (after 4 of 5 events)

WOMEN
1- Rhiannan Iffland AUS – 77pts.
2- Molly Carlson CAN – 50
3- Simone Leathead CAN – 44
4- Kaylea Arnett USA – 41
5- Xantheia Pennisi AUS – 35

MEN
1- Aidan Heslop (W) GBR – 68pts.
2- James Lichtenstein USA – 57
3- Constantin Popovici ROU – 55
4- Catalin Preda ROU – 32
5- Gary Hunt FRA – 30

Click here for more details on the 2026 permanent athletes.

About The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series

The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series is the premier global competition in the sport, featuring 24 elite athletes – 12 women and 12 men – who dive from heights of 21 and 27 metres at speeds exceeding 85 km/h. Now in its 17th season, the multi-day series visits iconic natural and urban locations worldwide. In 2026, it will stop in Indonesia, the USA, Denmark, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Italy and Oman between May and November. Since 2009, almost 120 athletes from more than 25 nationalities have competed for the prestigious King Kahekili Trophy, in a World Series that combines extreme sports with precision and global storytelling.

A press release from Zoomlion disclosed that the same robots are now working daily in Zoomlion’s smart factories, sorting materials, tying cable harnesses, assembling parts and carrying out inspections.

And this mix of competition testing and factory use is helping Zoomlion to improve its robots and expand their industrial applications.

The World Humanoid Robot Games provided demanding conditions for evaluating gait algorithms, joint responsiveness and overall stability under high-speed motion and complex control conditions, while providing data to further refine the company’s full-stack capabilities across algorithms, software, hardware and industrial applications.

Zoomlion’s robots delivered consistent performances across all three events, showcasing the integration of their hardware architecture, AI algorithms and motion-control systems. Their showing reinforced the company’s position among the field’s leading robotics developers.

Zeng Guang, general manager of Zoomlion’s ZValley, said the events measured more than speed and strength, providing a broader assessment of the company’s AI capabilities and its ability to deploy robots in real-world settings. Competing alongside teams from around the world also allowed Zoomlion to benchmark its technology and refine its systems and products for greater reliability and adaptability in industrial settings.

The company has deployed dozens of its humanoid robots across its smart factories, where they perform material sorting, cable-harness tying, component preassembly, precision assembly, finished-product inspection and factory patrols.

The bipedal Z01 uses AI-powered imitation learning to organize randomly placed objects and precisely arrange and tie cable harnesses. The wheeled Z03 can independently handle precision processes, including preassembling mirrors for industrial equipment, to meet the accuracy requirements of production lines.

Zoomlion draws on real-world operating data from these deployments, as well as more than 300 intelligent production lines and over 2,000 industrial robots running year-round. This data supports the continued refinement of AI models, algorithms and robot performance, creating a cycle in which technology enables deployment and real-world experience informs further development.

Zoomlion’s portfolio includes bipedal and wheeled humanoid robots as well as quadruped robots, backed by in-house capabilities spanning core components, operating systems, complete robot systems and industrial applications. The company is among the few AI-native robotics companies to combine full-stack humanoid robot development, deployment at scale and continuous improvement based on real-world data. It is also the only high-end equipment manufacturer to have developed and deployed embodied AI robots.

Zoomlion will continue advancing its embodied AI technologies and scaling humanoid robot deployments across industrial manufacturing, specialized operations and smart services.

This is particularly intriguing when technology is applied at the limits of possibility; when engineers are dealing with incredible capabilities and also have to factor in size, weight, and portability. Rather than assuming that the highest capacity battery/tank package available is the correct one, it’s much easier to arrive at the correct battery/tank package when you work through the actual trade-offs.

The Size Trade-Off

The most obvious compromise is the physical size. To achieve the advertised puff count levels, high-capacity devices require a bigger lithium-ion battery and a larger overall tank, typically divided into several 2ml puffs and separate refill containers, which inevitably results in a larger, heavier hand-held device. This can be especially noticeable compared with more compact vape pens designed for easier pocket storage and everyday carrying. 

That’s fair for those who want to charge and refill as rarely as they can, but it’s certainly not a benefit to pocket comfort, portability, or the non-showy crowd. A smaller device gives up some raw capacity for a slimmer, lighter design that allows for easy carrying, in a jacket pocket, in a small bag, or in the work environment where a larger device would be more obvious.

Charging Frequency and Convenience

The second consideration is charging frequency, which isn’t as easy as saying, “More battery, fewer charges. The second is charging frequency, which is not that straightforward as “more battery, fewer charges. The higher the device’s capacity, the less frequently you’ll need to charge it, but each charge will take much longer since there are more mAh to draw from, which can be an inconvenience if you need to charge as much as you can in an hour. A smaller battery enables faster charging because it’s smaller, and that’s appropriate for a user who is willing to charge often through a USB-C connection, but would prefer a shorter charging time and lighter device to take with them while they are on the go.

Cost: Paying for Capacity You Might Not Use

Cost is another factor worth weighing carefully. Compact devices are generally priced lower than their high-capacity counterparts, reflecting the smaller battery and tank involved and the reduced material cost that comes with a simpler internal build. That shift in scale also highlights an interesting side of modern technology: impressive functionality does not always require a larger machine, and clever engineering can achieve surprising results within a remarkably small footprint. For someone who vapes moderately rather than heavily throughout the day, paying a premium for capacity that goes largely unused most days does not necessarily translate into better value once the numbers are actually worked through. 

The Hayati Pro Max Plus 6000 sits in this middle ground specifically, offering a step up from the smallest compact devices without the bulk or price of the largest high-capacity kits, which is part of why mid-size devices like it tend to be the most commonly picked option for regular daily use rather than either extreme. Matching the device to actual usage patterns, rather than buying the highest-rated option by default, is usually the more cost-effective approach over time, especially once ongoing pod or refill costs are factored in alongside the upfront price.

The Ergonomics Argument

There is also a simple ergonomics argument for compact devices. Smaller, lighter devices are generally more comfortable to hold for extended periods and less noticeable in a pocket or bag, which matters more to some users than an extra few thousand puffs of headroom they may never actually draw on. Grip comfort and how a device sits in the hand during regular use are easy to overlook when comparing spec sheets side by side, but they shape day-to-day satisfaction just as much as raw mAh and ml figures do, particularly for anyone who holds or carries the device for long stretches through the day.

Battery Health Over Time

It’s also important to consider battery health over time: It’s one of the less apparent differences between the two categories. After repeated charging cycles, all lithium-ion batteries lose some portion of their useful life, and a smaller one charged more frequently will last a shorter time than a larger one charged less often. Proper charging and storage practices can also help users avoid battery fires while preserving battery performance. This difference is typically not that extreme and generally cannot be detected given the typical replacement or upgrade cycle for a battery, but it’s one of the reasons no one has a long-term advantage over another size based on battery life.

How This Plays Out With Nicotine Strength and Pod Life

Size doesn’t really seem to have an impact in one instance: nicotine delivery. Despite the size of the device, UK-compliant pods are produced at the same mg/ml strength limits as stipulated under the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), so switching between a smaller and larger device from the same range will not change the strength of nicotine being vaped, only the frequency at which the pod is required to be replaced, or the tank refilled. This is a lesson to be learned before thinking that a larger device offers more power or intensity of experience; the gap is really only in terms of session length while charged and refueled, not intensity.

But is a Smaller Device Worth it?

None of these are reasons not to get high-capacity devices; if someone really wants to reduce the frequency of charging or refilling, the larger one will be more practical. However, if you’re looking for something that you’ll use every day, it’s often the better choice to go with something smaller, as there is more to consider than just raw capacity when it comes to portability and charging convenience. The same applies to many amazing technologies, including the rise and popularity of compact vape pens, which highlights how compact engineering can bring many easy-to-forget practical advantages when size is the only criterion that counts for performance.

According NVIDIA news, CHOP’s cardiac modeling service is built on MONAI — an open source medical imaging framework cofounded by NVIDIA

Congenital heart defects affect roughly 1% of live births, presenting unique anatomical challenges that historically forced surgeons to rely on ill-fitting, off-the-shelf devices. To solve this, Dr. Matthew Jolley and his team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) built SlicerHeart, an open-source extension of 3D Slicer. By training segmentation networks with NVIDIA MONAI Label and Auto3DSeg, the hospital transformed a tedious four-hour manual segmentation task into a process completed in seconds. This leap allowed high-precision 3D heart modeling to transition from an experimental research project into a routine clinical standard of care across complex pediatric surgeries.

Beyond static visualization, CHOP is advancing into real-time biomechanical simulation to predict how devices interact inside a patient’s body before any incision is made. Leveraging Newton—an open-source physics engine based on the NVIDIA Warp Python framework—researchers can run GPU-accelerated simulations of tissue stress and device deployment. This cuts simulation runtimes from up to four hours down to near real time, empowering clinicians to test multiple device configurations and make same-day treatment decisions for delicate hole-closure and valve-replacement procedures.

The innovation extends even further through digital twin technology built with OpenUSD and NVIDIA Omniverse. By coupling these framework simulations with virtual reality environments and embedded vision-language models (VLMs), surgical teams can intuitively examine and interact with a child’s virtual heart. Clinicians can query spatial relationships, test structural repairs, and evaluate hemodynamic blood-flow dynamics, gaining complete clarity on the patient’s unique anatomy long before entering the operating room.

Because the pediatric heart population is too small and varied to drive traditional commercial device investment, open source has become the essential workaround. Collaborating alongside institutions like Stanford and Boston Children’s Hospital, CHOP is helping lead a national consortium of children’s hospitals. By pairing broad clinical research with NVIDIA’s industrial-scale platform development, medical teams can bypass commercial limitations, democratize cutting-edge tools, and tailor life-saving interventions for one-of-a-kind kids.

Most people already have enough mugs, shirts, candles, and gift cards. And the person who says they “don’t need anything” is generally the hardest person to shop for. So maybe the answer isn’t another normal gift.

Some of the best presents are weird, unnecessary, slightly ridiculous, or just specific enough that the person immediately knows why you bought it for them. And sometimes it isn’t a product at all. A weekend away, something you build yourself, or even a bizarre plant can work better than another thing that ends up forgotten in a drawer.

Incredible Things has spent years discovering products, places, and ideas that fall well outside the ordinary. So rather than another predictable gift guide, we pulled together some of our favorite ideas for giving someone something they’ll actually remember.

1. Put Their Face on Their Morning Toast

Anyone can give someone a toaster. Giving them a toaster that puts their own face on the bread is considerably more interesting.

Selfie toasters and other image toasters use specially designed heating elements, plates, or stamps to create faces, logos, and other designs on toast. It’s the kind of kitchen gadget that nobody needs – which is precisely what makes it such a good novelty gift.

It could work particularly well for someone who loves unusual kitchen gadgets, inside jokes, or personalized gifts. .

Read: This Toaster Toasts Your Selfie Onto Bread

2. Give a Pet Lover Something Completely Over the Top

Some people love their pets. Other people apparently believe their pets should live better than most humans.

If you’re shopping for someone firmly in the second group, the world of luxury pet accessories gets wonderfully absurd. Designer carriers, extravagant beds, expensive collars, elaborate pet furniture, and other accessories can turn shopping for a dog or cat into something resembling a trip through a luxury department store.

You certainly don’t need to spend a fortune. The fun may simply be finding one extravagant item that perfectly matches the personality of the pet – and its owner.

Read: 14 Ridiculously Expensive Pet Products

3. Give the Person With Everything Glitter Poop Pills

There are thoughtful gifts. There are practical gifts. And then some gifts make you wonder how anyone came up with the idea in the first place. The infamous gold-and-glitter poop pills belong firmly in that third category.

While not meant for actual consumption, they became one of those wonderfully ridiculous products that seem almost engineered to be given as a gag gift. 

It’s hard to imagine anyone putting “make my poop sparkle” on a birthday wish list, which also means there’s a good chance the recipient won’t see this one coming. This is not the gift for everyone. For the right friend, however, it may be hard to top.

Read: This Gold Pill Makes You Poop Glitter

4. Build Them a Bookcase Instead of Buying Them Something

Not every unusual gift has to come from the internet.

If you’re buying for someone who genuinely loves books, building them a bookcase could be better than buying another object to sit on one. And it doesn’t have to turn into a full woodworking documentary.

You could build a simple shelf, fix up an old bookcase, add some paint or lighting, or go all in with built-in shelves if you actually know what you’re doing.

The nice part is that it can be made around the person. Their books, their room, the awkward bit of wall they’ve never figured out what to do with.

Our bookcase ideas range from fairly realistic DIY projects to designs that may require considerably more confidence with power tools. Either way, for the right person, the fact that you made it may matter more than what it cost.

Read: 20 Brilliant Bookcases

5. Give Them a Trip to One of the Biggest Pools in the World

There is no rule saying a gift has to fit inside a box.

For someone who loves travel, warm weather, or simply floating in an enormous body of water with a drink nearby, consider turning a birthday or anniversary present into a trip built around one of the biggest swimming pools in the world.

We’re not talking about upgrading to the hotel with the slightly nicer pool.

Some of the world’s largest man-made lagoons and swimming pools are destinations unto themselves. Planning a vacation around seeing one turns the gift into an experience and gives the recipient something to anticipate long before the trip actually begins.

You can even reveal the gift with a pair of sunglasses, a swimsuit, or some other inexpensive clue before explaining where you’re actually taking them. That’s a much harder present to forget than another sweater.

Read: Biggest Pool in the World

6. Give a Plant That Looks Like a Monkey

Flowers are one of the most traditional gifts imaginable. A flower that appears to have a tiny monkey face staring out of it is another matter entirely.

The monkey orchid is one of nature’s stranger creations and a great example of how an ordinary gift category can become something genuinely unusual.

For the serious orchid enthusiast or experienced plant collector, finding a legitimate monkey orchid could make for a fascinating gift. But this one comes with an important qualifier: it isn’t the kind of houseplant you casually put on a sunny windowsill and water when you remember.

That may actually make it more appealing to the right recipient. Plant enthusiasts tend to appreciate something unusual enough to present a challenge.

For everyone else, consider this inspiration to look beyond roses and supermarket houseplants when shopping for the gardener in your life.

Read: The Monkey Orchid Looks Like a Monkey

7. Give Them a Weekend at One of America’s Largest Casinos

For the person who would rather receive an experience than another possession, make the gift an entire weekend.

A trip built around visiting one of the largest casinos in America can include much more than gambling. Major casino resorts can combine hotels, restaurants, entertainment, nightlife and other attractions into one destination.

That makes this especially useful as a gift for couples.

Instead of buying your spouse another object, book the hotel, plan dinner and turn the present into a weekend away. Or make it a group gift and plan a trip with friends for a birthday, bachelor party or milestone celebration.

Las Vegas is the obvious choice, but it isn’t the only one. Some of America’s largest casino gaming floors are far removed from the Las Vegas Strip. That alone can turn the trip into something the recipient wasn’t expecting.

Read: Largest Casino in America

8. Give Them a Toothbrush That Feels Like a Piece of Future Tech

There is always one person who has to own the newest piece of technology. You know the type.

They bought a smartwatch before anyone knew why watches needed computers. Their house has more connected devices than electrical outlets. And if a company puts advanced technology into something that previously worked perfectly well without it, they’re probably interested.

That makes an unusually sophisticated toothbrush a surprisingly good fit for the tech obsessive on your list. It is the kind of gift that turns one of the most routine parts of the day into something that feels futuristic.

Unique gifts are supposed to provoke some version of: “Wait. They actually make this?” This certainly qualifies.

Read: Dyson CameraJet Toothbrush

The Best Unique Gift Might Not Be a Thing

That may be the common thread connecting the best gifts.

They don’t necessarily have to be expensive, practical, or even particularly sensible. They just need to demonstrate that you know the person you’re giving them to.

For one person, that’s a ridiculous kitchen gadget. For another, it’s an orchid that looks like a monkey.

A book lover might appreciate something you build yourself. A traveler might prefer a weekend away to anything you could wrap. And there is apparently someone out there who is going to be absolutely delighted by glitter poop pills.

The point isn’t to find the weirdest gift possible simply for the sake of being weird.

It’s to find the unusual thing, project or experience that makes you immediately think: That’s perfect for them. And those are usually the gifts people remember.

Meta announced that Muse  is already rolling out in the US on iOS, Android, and muse.ai, and coming soon to AI glasses. It’s free for most of what people need, with subscription plans for people who want to do more.

Muse is designed to handle both everyday tasks and larger goals with minimal input. Users can ask it to send emails, book travel, open websites, fill out forms, negotiate on their behalf, or coordinate plans around a broader objective. It can continue working after the app is closed and return when it needs approval or when something changes. Muse can also remember useful preferences and details, allowing it to make proactive suggestions, such as turning a saved Instagram recipe into a shopping list or considering friends’ dietary restrictions when planning a dinner. For purchases, Muse can use Link by Stripe, with a one-time-use card that keeps users’ real payment details hidden, while Shop Pay and 1Password support are planned.

Privacy and security are central to how Muse operates. Meta built Muse Secure VM as a dedicated virtual machine where the AI agent, user data, and connected service credentials are isolated from other agents. A separate Sentinel agent controls Muse’s access to the internet and can require user approval before sensitive actions are completed. Muse cannot directly see passwords or payment details stored in secure storage, while users can decide which apps it connects to and what permissions it receives. The system also provides an audit trail of actions, allows users to disconnect services or change permissions, and gives them the option to prevent their interactions from being used to train Meta’s AI models. Meta says Muse conversations and VM data are not shared with its advertising systems, and users can ask Muse to forget specific information.

Meta sees Muse as an early step toward what it calls personal superintelligence, with the goal of having AI take on more of the work involved in everyday life. The company is also developing Muse Confidential VM, which will encrypt the entire virtual machine with a key controlled by the user, meaning even Meta would not be able to access the contents. Muse is initially rolling out in the United States on iOS, Android, and the web at muse.ai, with support for AI glasses planned. The service will be free for most common uses, while subscription plans will be available for people who need greater capabilities.