SNL: Louis C.K. is Lincoln

One of the best (and strangest) moments on last night's Saturday Night Live combined two things that, on paper, have no right to work together. What happens when you take guest host Louis C.K.'s wonderful FX series 'Louie' and recast it with Abraham Lincoln? The result is something bizarre and brilliant.

What's immediately obvious once the clip begins is that the SNL crew truly understand the look and tone of 'Louie.' Anyone who has seen the Emmy Award winning show (and if you haven't, it's one of the best things on TV) will instantly recognize the grounded, confident camerawork and the tricky tonal combination of reality and surreality...except that the sixteenth President of the United States is at the center of the action instead of a New York City comedian.

Much like the show it's spoofing, the sketch ambles from scene to scene in a stream of consciousness manner, bouncing from Lincoln's awkward encounter with a freed slave to a domestic dispute with his "historically" crazy wife over where they left the tickets to the evening's play. Meanwhile, Lincoln performs on a stand-up stage, where he jokes that half of the country wants to kill him. The highlight of it all is the exact recreation of 'Louie's opening credits (with a slightly revised theme song, of course).