Since a small budget is driving casting choices, I say it's time Lorne Michaels held open tryouts. In the spirit of letting the competition know what they're up against, I offer here the opening bits for my audition:

The White House reported today that it received a proposal from Fox Television for a new reality show featuring the Vice President. The show, dubbed Face Time with Dick Cheney, would portray Cheney pursuing casual activities with his close friends and advisers. When asked if the proposal called for interviewees to be shot on location, the White House replied, "No comment."

This week the International Astronomers Union reclassified the planet Pluto as a hybrid comet, thus grouping it with asteroids that orbit the sun from the same distance. The Walt Disney Corporation held a press conference immediately after, declaring that Pluto was not a dog either, but a cross between a cartoon and an undisclosed actor [picture of Dick van Dyke] in stretched-out sleepers.

The Department of Homeland Security raised the terror level to red earlier today, after learning through CraigsList that a Brazilian au pair had entered the country late last night. Officials were overwhelmed by the news. A source inside the department who wished to remain anonymous declared, "A Brazilian? My God, they must be tiny."

Read 'em and weep, boys. The job is mine.