One of the nice things about hulu (hint: it’s not the constant advertising), is that it gives Saturday Night Live a space to post extra sketches that get cut from broadcast. Generally speaking you can always tell why the sketches were cut based on their relative shittiness, but occasionally a little gem slips through the cracks. Case in point is this pretty funny little number cut from the weekend’s season finale episode that probably would have been a show standout had it been aired. The sketch sees Justin Timberlake play Amadeus Mozart (a stretch I know, but go with it) who has decided to transition into acting. Cue a pithy little skit that allows Timberlake to mock his own acting career and sneak in a dig at Justin Bieber, because the world just can’t seem to get enough of that. Hint the jump for all of the deleted hilarity you missed from Saturday’s show.

Here’s the deleted Justin Timberlake sketch in question courtesy of hulu:

Overall, pretty damn funny stuff. The fact that Timberlake was willing to take a dig at his upcoming rom-crap-com Friends With Benefits was nice even if it doesn’t excuse the fact that he appeared in the movie. The Social Network and SNL jokes were pretty funny as well, even though they had an uncomfortable inside baseball ring to them that probably accounts for the sketch being cut. Still, it would have been nice if the Justin Bieber dig (“Why don’t you just put a wig on a chipmunk and train it to act like a black man?”) made it to air, but it’s not as if SNL hasn’t cracked wise about the annoying pint sized pop phenomenon before.

Annnnnd that’s officially the last SNL sketch we’ll get in 2011. The finale was solid, but the season was undeniably uneven. I guess this would be the point when I should criticize the show for “not being what it once was,” but really even with the greatest casts the show is still hit and miss. There may have been a lot of misses this year, but considering all the new additions made to the cast, the group seemed to work together well (even if the most promising newcomer Jay Pharoah was sadly underused for most of the season). The entire year was justified for the Lonely Island’s “Jack Sparrow” music video alone. As long as SNL can crank out even one sketch that cripplingly funny every year, Lorne Michaels should keep that rickety old train running. –Phil Brown