SNL skips laughs, goes for the heart as children sing 'Silent Night'

As enduring as "Saturday Night Live" has been as a comedy franchise, it has always managed to strike the right touch when tragedy hits close to home. Lorne Michaels famously asked former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani if it was OK to be funny after 9/11. ("Why start now?" was Giuliani's even more famous reply.) In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, SNL offered a moment just as delicate. The simple, tasteful solution: the New York Children's Chorus singing "Silent Night" as a cold opening to the show, a tug at the heart that made the laughs that followed that much funnier, and necessary.

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