Following a long week of Election coverage, fans of the hit sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL) tuned in to see comedy legend Dave Chappelle host with musical guest the Foo Fighters. Using Canvs’ new YouTube TV feature, we decided to not only take a look at how this episode ranks among past SNL episodes, but also which segments were able to drive the highest rates of engagement.

Dave Chappelle’s Episode of Saturday Night Live earned the highest levels of Emotional Reactions and Total Tweets compared to every episode of SNL over the last three years.

• Dave Chappelle’s episode of Saturday Night Live broke many records for the series the night of its airing across Twitter, earning 48K Emotional Reactions (5.6x above the SNL average, ranked #1 over the last 3 years), 112K Total Tweets (5.5x above the SNL average, ranked #1 over the last 3 years), and a 30% Reaction Rate.
• Beyond its over-performance against past episodes of Saturday Night Live, this was also the top ranked airing on all television the night of its premiere.

• Twitter Emotional Reactions from this episode were heavily positive with top emotions including ‘love’ (21% of Emotional Reactions), ‘funny’ (17% of Emotional Reactions, 5% above SNL benchmarks), ‘excited’ (10% of Emotional Reactions), ‘happy’ (8% of Emotional Reactions, 6% above SNL benchmarks), and ‘crazy’ (7% of Emotional Reactions)
• Most ‘happy’ verbatims were driven by fans happiness over Dave Chappelle hosting, and the football game that delayed SNL finally ending
  • Verbatims:
    • Love: “That Dave Chappelle SNL opening 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥”
    • Funny: “Dave Chappelle just made me spit out my drink laughing. #SNL”
    • Excited: “not listening to new foos until they perform it on snl. i’m so pumped”
    • Happy: “Oh thank god SNL's finally on. The one night I actually tune in live”
    • Crazy: “OH MY GOD SNL BEING FORMATTED AS CHAPPELLE’S SHOW IM LOSING IT”

Top Segments of the show include Dave Chappelle’s Monologue, and the Cold Open Sketch Featuring Jim Carrey, Alec Baldwin, and Maya Rudolph based on SNL’s YouTube TV data

• Outside of Twitter, Saturday Night Live’s YouTube page was also able to amass high levels of Emotional Reactions leading up to and after the airing of Dave Chappelle’s episode
  • Outside of earning 57M views in the week surrounding the episode, videos posted to SNL’s YouTube page amassed 65K Total Comments and 33K Emotional Reactions, a 51% Reaction Rate for the channel
• The highest performing segments from Dave Chappelle’s episode of Saturday Night Live were overwhelmingly Dave Chappelle’s Stand-Up Monologue, and the Biden Victory Cold Open sketch, both earning 10K Emotional Reactions

• While Dave Chappelle’s Stand-Up Monologue and the Biden Victory Cold Open were able to drive the highest levels of Emotional Reactions, the Uncle Ben sketch was able to earn the highest rate of ‘funny’ Emotional Reactions at 44%, making this sketch the funniest of the night for Saturday Night Live
  • Beyond ‘funny’ Emotional Reactions, the sketch earned 20% ‘love’ Emotional Reactions, and 5% ‘crazy’ Emotional Reactions, along with 6.4M views on Saturday Night Live’s YouTube channel
    • Verbatims:
      • Funny: “Lmao and he made Pete Davidson break so abruptly that he spit out his fangs”
      • Love: “i love how even before dave chapelle began, he couldn't keep it together”
      • Crazy: “BRUH I HAD NO IDEA THAT WAS PETE DAVIDSON UNTIL HE POINTED IT OUT I DECEASED✌🏾😭

Dave Chappelle was able to drive the most Emotional Reactions during the airing, and fans Reaction Rates were highest among Pete Davidson, Kenan Thompson, and Kate McKinnon

• Dave Chappelle was able to drive the highest levels of engagement, accounting for 13K Emotional Reactions (27% of all Emotional Reactions during the airing), and 44K Total Tweets, for a Reaction Rate of 29%
  • Verbatims:
    • “Dave Chappelle just made me spit out my drink laughing. #SNL”
    • “My core hurts from laughing at SNL tonight. Chappelle at his best.”
• While Dave Chappelle drove by far the highest levels of Emotional Reactions, fans emotionally engaged at a higher rate for SNL’s Pete Davidson, Kenan Thompson, and Kate McKinnon
  • Most Emotional Reactions around Pete Davidson and Kenan Thompson focus on the Uncle Ben and Count Chocula characters in the Uncle Ben Sketch
    • Pete Davidson: “That Count Chocula Pete Davidson sketch is everything.”
    • Pete Davidson: “Dave Chapelle and Pete Davidson cracking up together is today’s mood! #SNL”
    • Kenan Thompson: “This skit is hella hilarious!!!!! Dave Chappelle, @kenanthompson & Maya Rudolph....EPIC!!!”
    • Kenan Thompson: “Kenan & Maya have reached that stage where I laugh when I just see them! #SNL”
  • Most Emotional Reactions around Kate McKinnon are focused on her appearance as Rudy Giuliani in the Weekend Update segment
    • Kate McKinnon: “Kate McKinnon as Giuliani on #SNL tonight had me dying laughing omg”
    • Kate McKinnon: “Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani is comedy gold 💰 #SNL”

Takeaways

• Dave Chappelle’s episode of Saturday Night Live was the most successful episode of the last three years, and the most Emotionally Reacted to airing the night of its premiere
• While Dave Chappelle’s Stand-Up monologue and the Biden Victory Cold Open were able to drive the highest levels of Emotional Reactions, the Uncle Ben Sketch earned the highest rate of ‘funny’ Emotional Reactions throughout the airing
• While Dave Chappelle was able to drive the highest levels of Emotional Reactions across the entire episode, fans heavily engaged with Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, and Kenan Thompson

Canvs, the leading emotion measurement technology company, connects consumer input to research insights with patented semantic AI technology to help companies deeply understand and empathize with their audiences

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