‘Saturday Night Live’: Lindsay Lohan’s ‘Real Housewives of Disney’ tops viewership

After a year that has seen her face more legal troubles, negative tabloid headlines, and even a comeback role as Elizabeth Taylor in the Lifetime Original movie in “Liz & Dick” that turned out to be a critical flop and a commercial disappointment, Lindsay Lohan may still have something to smile about to close off 2012: she had the most-popular “Saturday Night Live” sketch of the year, at least according to Hulu.

The company released their list of the most-popular sketches on Thursday, and Lohan’s “Disney Housewives” (otherwise known as “The Real Housewives of Disney”) had the most total views of the year on the site, followed surprising by the so-so “Undecided Voter.” Really, there were only two other worthy entries in our list in our mind: the brilliant puppet sketch from earlier this season at #4, and the debut of Cecily Strong’s “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party” on “Weekend Update” at #5.

Really, what made Lohan’s sketch here so brilliant was hardly just Lindsay herself (although she did a fine job in it). It was the combination of her pop-culture presence along with the brilliant premise behind the sketch and the writing, which was some of the finest “SNL” has done all year long. Plus, casting Kristen Wiig as a boozy Cinderella turned out to be gold (enough to even save Jasmine and Aladdin from their money troubles, hopefully). The irony here is that the rest of Lohan’s show was really rather lousy, and this almost made the rest of it worth watching.