Enjoying a run of nearly 30 years on US TV, comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live is right up there with mom's apple pie and trigger-happy postmen on the list of great American institutions.

SNL debuted in the States on 11th October 1975, and those who've escaped from NBC's Studio 8H and graduated to the Hollywood A-List include Steve Martin, Ben Stiller, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Adam Sandler, and, er, Chevy Chase.

Some use the opportunity to escape into 'serious acting' (Robert Downey Jr, Joan Cusack, Jay Mohr), while others carve credible careers forever playing the patsy (David Spade, Jon Lovitz). And alas, others succumb to the pressures of celebrity and fall by the wayside, convulsing and frothing at the mouth (John Belushi and Chris Farley, RIP).

Whatever the climate in Hollywood, SNL is consistently churning out fresh and distinctive comedy talent. For evidence of that, you need only cast your eye over films heading our way in 2003...

Adam Sandler is the latest SNL alumnus to be anointed Hollywood's Lord of the Laughs, starring in, writing, and producing Hanukkah tale "Eight Crazy Nights". The cartoon - itself inspired by an SNL sketch - is an exercise in gross-out comedy that boldly oversteps the mark into downright repugnant.

It's precisely this kind of schtick that's thrust Sandler into the limelight. It's also brought him to the attention of acclaimed director Paul Thomas Anderson, who casts him as a tragi-comic romantic hero in "Punch-Drunk Love".

In this, his most anticipated project, Sandler eschews slapstick gurning to put on a human face and let the laughs spring naturally from twists of character and plot. It arrives on UK shores on 7th February.

SNL was also proud to bring you "Wayne's World", a precursor to Mike Myers' Second Coming as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. His mop-headed sidekick Dana Carvey hoped to establish a similar on-screen persona as "The Master of Disguise", only to have his pants pulled down by US critics (it still grossed a respectable $40 million, though). You can make up your own minds from 17th January.

For Ben Stiller, SNL alter ego Derek Zoolander was a movie waiting to happen, and one that allowed him to wear several oh-so-fashionable hats. Writing, starring, producing, and directing, "Zoolander" established Stiller as a major Hollywood player.

Ahead of the much-awaited sequel to "Meet the Parents", Stiller will be seen in Danny DeVito's crime caper "Duplex" (with Drew Barrymore), and sliding across car bonnets as the-one-with-the-dark-hair in a spoof remake of "Starsky and Hutch".

And then there's Eddie Murphy...

In the early 80s, he had us rolling in the aisles with "Trading Places" (co-starring fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd) and the anarchic "Coming to America". He even made a convincing foray into the action genre with "Beverly Hills Cop".

And then... well, like one of his Klump comedy farts, he stank up the place.

Murphy's movie misses are too numerous to list here, but "Showtime" and spaced-out flop "Pluto Nash" deserve special mention for their awfulness.

His latest effort, espionage comedy "I-Spy", opens here on 24th January, but with obnoxious/hilarous (delete according to taste) Murphy Morph Chris Rock snapping at his heels, our Eddie can't afford to kick back and relax.

Although Rock himself has proved more hit and miss than a myopic boxer, Eddie might still rue the day he spotted the young comedian on the NY Comedy Strip.

After starring in the likes of "Lethal Weapon 4", "Down to Earth", and "Nurse Betty", Rock recently directed himself in political comedy "Head of State". You can see him run for office next autumn.

A safer box office bet is 'Mr Saturday Night' himself, Billy Crystal. He reprises his role as shrink-to-the-mob Ben Sobel next February, in "Analyze That".

And there's also Steve Martin, aiming for a return to form in next summer's "Bringing Down the House". It's a comic parable about love on the internet, co-starring ball-busting jailbreaker Queen Latifah (admit it, you're laughing already).

Even if these coming attractions fail to tickle your funny-bone, chances are that somewhere in your dusty video collection, a well-worn copy of "Animal House", "The Man with Two Brains", or "The Blues Brothers" is lurking. Waiting to be rewound on a rainy Sunday evening. So far-reaching is the influence of Saturday Night Live.

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