'Saturday Night Live' parodied the jury selection process in 2025

A TV show put 1 unsuspecting man on a fake jury surrounded entirely by actors for 3 weeks

In the Amazon comedy "Jury Duty," Ronald Gladden believed he was participating in a documentary about the judicial process, unaware that everyone involved with the entire trial was an actor. In this podcast, Gladden and director Jake Szymanski reflect on the experience.

Federal juries are selected from voter rolls and driver's license lists

Courts randomly draw prospective jurors from these sources, then mail qualification questionnaires. Those who qualify may be summoned for voir dire, where judges and attorneys question candidates before seating a final jury.

'Saturday Night Live' uses a tool to recreate politicians' clothes

The show's costume designer, Tom Broecker, said that the team uses a "cricket," which allows them to scan patterns from images and recreate them for cast members' costumes.

‘Saturday Night Live’ cast rank the show's best comics

"Saturday Night Live" has held a unique role in the cultural zeitgeist since its founding in 1975, providing a national stage of silly mockery and filling our Sunday feeds with the latest impressions of public figures. In its 50th year, 50 cast members weigh in on who their favorite casts and individual comedians were. Read their various opinions here.

'SNL' parodied Liza Minnelli's showbiz persona

Kristen Wiig plays Minnelli in the skit, poking fun at the Broadway star's extravagance and onstage presence. Minnelli is unable to perform regular tasks without whipping out Fosse's dance moves.

‘SNL’ sketches often follow a uniform structure

Sketch comedy relies on pacing, with scripts that hit certain beats. "SNL" often greenlights sketches that lean into a particular formula that features two "turns," or unexpected events that disrupt the "base reality" of the story.

Explore jury nullification, the little-known power that lets jurors ignore the law and acquit anyway

When jurors disagree with a law, they can simply vote to acquit regardless of the evidence; however, this practice is rare, and the legal system actively discourages it. This podcast traces its history from a Quaker prayer meeting in London to the LA riots.

Grand juries were once considered a formality, but that may no longer be the case

New York's former chief judge famously said a prosecutor could get a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich," showing how rarely a grand jury refused. However, recent cases in which prosecutors failed to secure an indictment during the second Trump administration are challenging that assumption.

Watch Will Ferrell's ‘SNL’ audition

Making it to “SNL” requires multiple auditions, including one in New York in front of Lorne Michaels and some of the show’s top staff. Will Ferrell’s audition for 'SNL' is one of the most legendary in the show's history. Ferrell runs through several of his classic characters, covering the stage in his singular weirdness.

In 41 states, older Americans can opt out of jury duty, but not in federal court

As of 2024, 41 states offer age-based exemptions from state jury duty, with opt-out ages ranging from 65 in Mississippi and South Carolina to 80 in five states. None of these exemptions applies to federal court.

'The Simpsons' has a knack for inadvertently predicting the future

Some have noted that "The Simpsons" has accurately anticipated a number of events years before they happened, including the election of President Donald Trump, Disney buying 21st Century Fox, and Siegfried and Roy's tiger attack. This list breaks down some of the show's most uncanny inadvertent predictions.

Roughly 830 people are invited to anonymously vote for winners

These anonymous voters must see every show in order to weigh in with their vote, meaning a big part of being a voter is a time commitment: Every season has at least 30 unique productions to see.

How presidential candidates prepare for TV debates

One of the most significant performances of a politician's life is the televised debate, which requires the kind of preparation only an actor would be familiar with. This article dives into some of the recent history around debate prep norms, including how every campaign chooses someone to act like the opponent in mock debates—often to comical effect.

The OJ Simpson case interrupted soaps’ daytime dominance, changing the genre

OJ Simpson's 1995 murder trial was broadcast for months, bumping soap operas from the airwaves. Fittingly, the trial provided the same salacious story lines, compelling characters, and open-ended narratives that soaps offered viewers. The key difference, of course, was that the Simpson trial was real life.

Satirists sometimes use ironic personas

Satirists often embody a character to mock the kind of person who would believe what they argue are ridiculous ideas. One famous example was Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report,” who satirized right-wing pundits like Bill O’Reilly through a bombastic persona. When O’Reilly asked whether that meant he was owed money, Colbert responded with more satire: “There’s a difference between imitation and emulation … If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don’t.”

The best wrong answers from 'Jeopardy!'

“Jeopardy!” is known for its geniuses, but that doesn’t mean every minute of the show is an illustration of brilliance. This compilation corrects some of the funniest incorrect responses from contestants, making for over 10 minutes of hilarity.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Remember iconic Oscar controversies, like the 2022 slap

Variety rounded up 21 different Oscar-winning scandals, starting with Will Smith's physical assault on Chris Rock and moving through best picture upsets and best supporting actress rumors—though nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t think Marisa Tomei gave an award-worthy performance in "My Cousin Vinny."

Photography and video are prohibited in the Supreme Court—but artists are not

Because cameras are banned inside the Supreme Court of the United States, courtroom artists document proceedings through sketches. This exhibition features works from 1964 to today, capturing the human drama of landmark cases and shaping how Americans visualize justice.

The Grammy nomination process is famously complex

To explain in simple terms, NARAS voting members make their recommendations for nominees, which are then reviewed to ensure the nominees are eligible and categorized correctly. After that, those same NARAS members vote a second time, and the winners are revealed live onstage during the ceremony.

In recent decades, Supreme Court nominations have grown increasingly contentious and partisan

This video examines the historical shift from bipartisan, civil confirmation hearings to the deeply divisive process seen today. It focuses on the 1987 nomination of Robert Bork, the most recent nominee to be rejected, as an important moment in this transformation.

Following the scandals, CBS briefly banned canned laughter

The network was looking to correct the public perception that its programming was fraudulent, so it banned laugh tracks and fake applause from its broadcasts. The policy didn’t last long; within a few years, sitcoms were regularly “sweetened” with the sound effects.

Memes can turn regular people into unwitting celebrities

When Charles Ramsey heard loud banging from his neighbor's house, he peeked outside and saw a woman trying to escape. After helping the abducted woman get free, he gave an interview that became a viral autotuned meme. This podcast explores the unintended consequences of that relationship and its racial overtones.

See hilarious photos from the Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

Napping frog princes, annoying lion husbands, and kung fu sea eagles are just some of the charming shots you'll find among the finalists for the award.

Aaron Judge asks Yankees fans about Aaron Judge

In this 2017 clip from the Tonight Show, Aaron Judge asks Yankees fans what they think about Aaron Judge — and some of them don’t realize they’re talking to the actual Aaron Judge.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Hip-hop lyrics are often used in criminal trials, blurring the line between art and evidence

Song lyrics from other genres are rarely used by prosecutors, but it's commonplace for hip-hop and rap. Legal scholars and rap artists say that's a problem, and that it fundamentally misunderstands the music by interpreting artistic expression as absolute fact.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.