I remember flipping between Mad TV and SNL back in 2006. I was watching Jack Black host an SNL episode, and a sketch came on where he was a bumbling news reporter in a photoshoot with his colleagues. What came after it was simply life-stopping. The first few seconds of “Lazy Sunday”, gave me the impression that this “featured player” Andy Samberg as a college-aged douche bag. But the time he described the combination of Mr. Pibb and Red Vines were “crazy delicious”, I knew there was a lot more to this guy. Digital Shorts have become part of popular culture, with videos like “Dick in a Box” and “I’m on a Boat” because they are genuinely funny. The most shared videos of the SNL library have been music videos, but there are a few great ones that are just plain old sketches.

There are a few Digital Shorts that are not online at all. Some of them have only aired to a live audience at SNL’s dress rehearsal. Some aren’t worth watching. But there IS one that isn’t online on SNL’s hulu page, NBC Youtube page, or SNL’s official site on NBC even though it’s the funniest digital short. It has surprisingly gone viral without being a music video, find out which video it is and why, after the jump:

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“Dear Sister” is a spoof on a similar scene from the O.C., set to the same music, which is “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap. The Lonely Island is a huge fan of the O.C. and have parodied the show before in the web series called “The Bu”.

But the reason why this was never uploaded by the webmasters of Hulu or NBC.com is in question. I assumed there was a copyright issue involving the song. If it is/was, I’d be a little upset because that song has been rented out by plenty other entertainers, including a particular rap song whose use pales in comparison to this video. I had to believe there was a different incident that occurred that led to this video never being uploaded.

The video aired in April 2007 two days before the shootings at Virginia Tech, and NBC Executives saw it in bad taste to upload the video. It’s not hard to deny that upon first viewing of “Dear Sister”, for the first half of the video there is nothing to laugh about. When I first saw it air, I had no idea that this was a comedy sketch. I was baffled at the content and tried to see where this could go.

By the time Shia LeBeouf walks in, that is the moment that is universally taken as the point where laughs come in. It’s the basic rule of threes, showing us two repetitive gun shots, and a third that we don’t expect and in result makes us break out in laughter. Then they beat the joke into us with more and more gun slaughter. Which would taste poorly if you were involved in the Virginia Tech Shooting.

But is it in bad taste to post it now? Every few months I look for this video, and I never watch it at the same “video-tube” site as before. NBC took it off YouTube and the “Dear Sister” keywords could lead you only to video responses reenacted by fans of the video. Or re-cut versions using characters from Fight Club or Naruto. It’s my favorite Digital Short of all time not because of this mystery that revolves around its whereabouts, but because it is genuinely funny, unexpected, and makes me feel emotions I’ve never felt towards a comedy video before.

I’d love more videos to challenge what comedy is, and its limits, and what is acceptable and what isn’t, and ultimately succeed like “Dear Sister” did. And if this video is one of their best, shouldn’t it be seen by everyone that has seen Natalie Portman rapping ? I hope you learned something relatively unimportant in a universal sense, but maybe you can spread a video that’s actually worth spreading.

And realize that as much of a frat boy Andy Samberg might look like, he’s actually a genius.