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Saturday Night Live's Best Holiday Sketch; Our "Wonderful Life" Sequel

With NBC's Saturday Night Live currently taking its long winter's nap for 2022 and this being Christmas weekend, we thought we would share what we consider to be the best SNL holiday sketch in the show's 48-and-counting season run. Of course, we're talking about Season 12 Episode 8 (December 20, 1986), hosted by William Shatner (with musical guest Lone Justice), with Dana Carvey portraying Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey in a never-before-seen lost ending to It's a Wonderful Life. Why? Because it feeds into what's at the core of my dislike of the holiday classic. George Bailey is just too damn & decent to have to put up with all of the unnecessary drama he faces in Bedford Falls. And while it's easy to paint Old Man Potter (played by Jon Lovitz in the sketch) as the villain, it's pretty much the entire town that continually screws over & disrespects the dude. That's why I don't get caught up in the feels at the end when the town "comes to his rescue"; that was the least they could do for him after he surrendered his dreams to keep that town afloat. But in the famous sketch, we get a chance (a 'timeline variant," if you will) to see what things might've been like had George Bailey finally had enough and gone looking for revenge.

Here's a look at the Saturday Night Live sketch that we would bring on our desert island (or stay at The North Pole, given the holiday season). Following that, we've resurrected our "pitch" from a little more than three years about a sexy, supernatural sequel series to "Wonderful Life" entitled Bedford Falls. Prepare to be impressed…

Bedford Falls: Our Sexy Spinoff Sequel to "It's a Wonderful Life"

"Bedford Falls": Okay, here's a look at an initial series overview/pilot rough draft overview for a very dark sequel series, with the tagline: "Every Time a Bell Rings… The Mystery Deepens," For a religious/supernatural slant, we could have it that no angels have gotten their wings since whatever it was that happened to change things – adds a "24 – beat the clock" aspect to it.

"Life's been pretty good for Dawn Bailey, but that wasn't always the case: growing up in her family's now nearly 75-year-old investment firm, B.B.Inc., Dawn found herself constantly having to work twice as hard, twice as long, to prove that she was deserving of her success. But those years have paid off for Dawn: now president of her family's Manhattan office – the final step as the heir apparent to the B.B. Inc. throne.

Yet she can't help shake this feeling that her life is a little off… that something isn't quite right…

And then the call that would change her life forever came: George Bailey III, patriarch of the Bailey family and business, was dead. Suicide. A tragic reminder of her family's past. After a whirlwind of tears and phone calls, Dawn finds herself on a jet, making her way back to where it all began: Bedford Falls, home of her family's greatest successes and darkest secrets.

The town would nurture the beginnings of the Bailey business – and drive Dawn's great-grandfather George to take his own life on a wintry night in 1945, a desperate move to escape the humiliation of being convicted for fraud. The town is also home to Potter Investments, the family's financial rival and hedge fund investment firm – and who some believe had a hand in both Georges' death.

But what of the old homeless man who follows Dawn everywhere, appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye? It's not so much his presence as it is the mantra the odd man repeats over and over again that chills Dawn's soul – opening her mind up to the possibility that her life isn't as wonderful as she once thought…

'He didn't jump. Please, I need my wings. I'll be good. He didn't jump. Please, I need my wings. I'll be good. He didn't jump. Please, I need my wings. I'll be good…'"

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