The Funniest 15 SNL Character Breaks of All Time

Chris Farley's character Matt Foley is a motivation speaker (who tends to be over the top at times) who's goal is to use his personal experiences and failures as a way to provide lessons to young people heading down the path of "trouble." Foley made his debut on the May 8th, 1993 episode of SNL hosted by Christina Applegate, which featured Applegate and David Spade playing a brother and sister duo in trouble for their new interest in pot, and Julia Sweeney and Phil Hartman as the concerned parents. Time to break out the bulleted list:

• Foley quite literally busts into the house grabbing his crotch area and adjusting his pants instead of walking in like a normal person, which we're willing to bet was unscripted.
• David Spade starts to break character from the very beginning as he's clearly fighting back laughter.
• Christina Applegate is next, but she's holding her head down so you can't really see her face.
• Eventually both David and Christina are covering their faces, and while Julia Sweeney and Phil Hartman did a better job of concealing their laughter...it's quite clear that they are....concealing their laughter.

Ah! The good old days when Jimmy Fallon was a young comedian trying to make a name for himself. We all know how awkward it can get when you are in a hotel pool/hot tub with folks that you don't know, and Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch (who eventually gets joined by Drew Barrymore) did their best to make it even more awkward for poor Fallon. The goal, apparently, was to make Fallon laugh, which was successful as he very clearly busts out into laughter after Drew Barrymore joins the party (who's laughing as well).

By the end of the skit everyone is laughing, making this one of the most memorable character breaks in SNL history.

While Pedro Pascal's appearance on SNL is a relatively young addition compared to the others that are on here, we absolutely had to include because as skilled as Pascal is as an actor, he was most certainly not doing a good job keeping that laughter in. This paritcular skit centered around a woman named Lisa disrupting her sister's birthday dinner, and Pascal starts laughing as soon as Lisa starts shaking the entire table while cutting her steak. To his defense, everybody breaks character, so he wasn't alone.

We're taking it back to the very early days of Saturday Night Live with this sketch from season 2 in 1976 starring Candice Bergen as Fern, who tries to help her not-so-smart friend Lisa (Gilda Radner) with a televised "message from the Right to Extreme Stupidity League." Time to break out the bulleted list again:

• You can already tell which direction this is heading when Gilda enters in the room saying "she's so thirsty that she can drink (not eat) a horse.
• Candice is trying to hard to contain her laughter as Gilda pours a glass of milk into her purse instead of drinking it.
• Then they both start laughing as Candice can't remember the name of Gilda's character (which is Lisa).
• Candice is unable to gain control and is now laughing uncontrollably as Gilda says she's "proud of being stupid."
• Then Candice just gives up completely and becomes a part of the audience.

Great stuff.

This isn't the first time "Career Day" has been mentioned for its hilarity, and we're sure it won't be the last. Adam Driver's character Abraham H. Parnassus decides to show up to his son's (Pete Davidson's Mordecai) Career Day to talk about his work as an oil man through a very passionate lecture to say the least. Davidson is having a hard time not laughing from the beginning, but he really starts to struggle when Driver starts shouting in his face.

Driver keeps taking the intensity up a notch with each lesson he delivers to the class, and eventually Davidson has to hide his face with a notebook. He doesn't break character completely, but he does cover his face enough to tell that he's laughing—which is good enough for us.

Just the way Kyle Mooney and Bobby Moynihan looked as Spock and Spocko alone would have been enough to make us bust out laughing, so major props to Chris Pine for not being in stitches from the very beginning. By the time the "Enterprise" ship starts having trouble, however, Pine is doing that thing where you move your mouth from side to side in order to stop yourself from laughing. Pine being the super professional he is doesn't break completely, but we still caught him.

Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, and Ryan Gosling were the stars of the "Close Encounter" skit, where they basically portrayed a bunch of stoners who just so happened to have an encounter with a UFO. Gosling can't keep it together as Kate (who seemingly takes things up a notch when she sees her co-stars are about to break) shares her stories about the adventure. Kate's stories get crazier and crazier, and eventually Gosling has to cover his mouth. Got em.

And if you thought the second time these three linked up to tell their close encounters was any different than the first, you thought wrong. Kate was the culprit in making her co-stars laugh once again as her stories were somehow even crazier this go-round than the ones she told before. Cecily very visibly breaks at certain points, and when Kate makes Ryan stand up so she can smack his butt, Ryan absolutely loses it. Afterwards he can barely say his lines which makes the exchange even funnier. Fun stuff once again.

Rachel Dratch took on the role of Debbie Downer, the lady hellbent on sharing depressing stories during a family visit to Disney World, and barely anybody could keep character. Let's bust out the bulleted list again:

• Jimmy Fallon is super excited about ordering steak and eggs, and Rachel makes it a point to bring up Mad Cow Disease.
• Then Rachel randomly brings up Roy of Siegfried and Roy getting attacked by a tiger which has Jimmy Fallon and Lindsay Lohan fighting back laughter.
• When everybody mentions which attractions and rides they are most excited to see, Rachel then mentions a train explosion in North Korea. Jimmy loses it and even Rachel starts laughing.
• By the time Rachel randomly mentions that she can't have children, the entire table can't keep it together.

Another great SNL character break moment.

The culprit here is once again Will Ferrell, who has Jimmy Fallon and Sean Hayes rolling with laughter from the minute he comes in (Jimmy was the first to break as usual as he tries to cover his laughter with the clothes he's folding). Ferrell pulls out quite possibly the tiniest flip phone to ever be created, and it's over from there. Sean and Jimmy never recover.

The very first "Californian's Sketch" had all the characters breaking from the minute it started. Fred Armisen's Stuart walks into the house and finds Devin (Bill Hader) and Karina (Kristen Wiig) making out, and Bill Hader breaks character immediately as Fred Armisen gives a very direct breakdown on how he can take the highway to get home. The laughter only continues from there.

Bill Hader broke character once again, this time at the hands of his co-star Kristen Wiig as the two busted out laughing and could barely recover when Bill threw the drink in her face and put a strainer on top of her head. When something like that happens you can either get mad or laugh. There was no other choice but to laugh with this one.

Unlike some of these sketches were the character knew they were going to say or do something that would make their co-stars break, Jason Sudeikis actually didn't mean to in this one as he had a mishap. In this iteration of "Scared Straight," Sudeikis portayed a police officer questioning three boys (Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Bobby Moynihan) who have supposedly been causing trouble. Sudeikis proceeds to sit on top of a desk the wrong way causing the prop pencils to fall onto the floor, and everybody is laughing except Sudeikis. Whoops.

Heidi Gardner and James McAvoy's characters Deidre and Reynold are back from their trip to New Orleans with new personalities and terrible accents. Let's break out the bulleted list for this one:

• Heidi and James sit down at the table and start talking about how they've been to "Nawlins."
• Kenan Thompson is the first to show signs at breaking as James pulls the term "Nawlins Molasses" out of thin air.
• James' retelling of the voodoo story has him trying to conceal his laughter.
• When Heidi starts waving and saying that it means the "same thing in New Orleans as what it does in America," James has just about lost it.
• By the end James can barely keep it together and accepts that he has lost the battle. Voice cracking and everything.

Absolutely hilarious.

In "Super Showcase Spokesmodels," Maya Ruldolph and Kristen Wiig were two ditzy incompetent spokesmodels who struggle at doing even the basics of their jobs properly. They can't keep it together as they start rolling out different items the contestant Debra could have won, and quite frankly, neither could we.