The sketch depicts two early 1990s R&B singers, played by Samberg and Timberlake, singing a holiday song about making a Christmas gift for their girlfriends of their penises in boxes.

SNL producers published an uncensored version of the sketch online right after its broadcast debut, a decision criticized by the Parents Television Council.

The track won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics in 2007, and appeared on the Australian and Canadian single charts in 2009.

[1] They decided to move to Los Angeles in September 2000 and formed the comedy trio The Lonely Island, named after the nickname they gave to the apartment they shared.

[2] In December, the trio wrote and recorded "Lazy Sunday" with fellow cast member Chris Parnell, which was broadcast as their second Digital Short.

[7] He subsequently appeared as both host and musical guest in an episode in October 2003,[7][8] in which he demonstrated his acting potential with an impression of Jessica Simpson and his work with Jimmy Fallon on The Barry Gibb Talk Show sketch.

[13][14] Inspired by the music they grew up listening to, members of The Lonely Island wanted to write an early 1990s R&B song that was similar to the work of Jodeci, R. Kelly, the Isley Brothers, LeVert, and H-Town.

[14] Samberg, who was feeling nervous when working on the idea with Timberlake, said the singer "took the reigns [sic] and schooled us on how to record and make it sound fantastic".

[12] Schaffer felt the filming process was both frightening and funny, saying, "We knew it was a really dumb idea and we weren't sure if we were even gonna get away with it on the air, but once we were actually making it, it was just super fun!

[36] At the end of the video, the men sing about giving the present on multiple occasions—at their parents' houses, the grocery store, and backstage at the Country Music Association Awards—while being arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD), presumably for indecent exposure.

[48][49] David Jeffries of AllMusic described "Dick in a Box" as an imitation of teen pop,[50] while Stephen Saito of Premiere called the slow jam "an ode to the phallic present for all occasions".

[55][57] Jorma said a scene in the 1982 Barry Levinson film Diner, in which Mickey Rourke's character tricks his date into groping him by placing his penis inside a box of popcorn at a movie theater also inspired the premise.

Penny Spirou in Music in Comedy Television: Notes on Laughs (2017) and Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times viewed the sketch as a satire of "the bad faith of the pandering R&B foreplay songs", which was made to trick a women's desire for comfort, until she "opens that nicely wrapped present".

"[33] Terry Gross of Fresh Air opined the sketch is a parody of male narcissism, in which the characters suggest "the greatest gift [a man] could give to a lady is a very special lovemaking".

[12] On December 21, the Parents Television Council (PTC) called on NBC and asked the network to explain the decision to post both versions of the song online.

[62][67] In an interview published by The New York Times the same day, Michaels said that posting the equivalent of a "director's cut" of his late-night show on the internet "will be the exception" in the future.

[71] "Dick in a Box" was one of five SNL Digital Shorts on the album, with "Lazy Sunday", "Natalie's Rap", "Ras Trent", and "Space Olympics".

[95] A report in The Atlantic showed that "Dick in a Box" and "Djesus Uncrossed," a 2013 parody of Django Unchained starring Christoph Waltz, were the most frequent targets of complaint letters sent to the FCC about SNL by viewers from 2012 to 2015.

[35][48] Gilbert Cruz of Entertainment Weekly thought the sketch was a nice way "to cap off what has been a fantastic year for [Timberlake]" and suggested SNL should focus more on the Digital Shorts.

[36] Tom Hall of IndieWire praised the Digital Short as the highlight of the show,[97] while Mark Lore of News & Review felt the track was Timberlake's best work since "Rock Your Body" (2003).

He praised the "dead-on spoof of that musical time period" and Wiig's brief cameo, and concluded, "Mr. Timberlake brought a very special package to us all this year, and he didn't even have it attached to his crotch.

[55] Jody Rosen of Vulture commended the track as a "sublime cultural artifact that deserves to be in the next time capsule that NASA shoots off toward Jupiter".

"[116] Timberlake, who was absent during the Primetime Creative Arts ceremony on September 8, celebrated after being notified of his Emmy win by performing a piano rendition of the song at the Tacoma Dome, Washington.

[117] Samberg was willing to perform "Dick in a Box" with Timberlake at the main 59th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, held in Los Angeles on September 16.

[109] The Emmy Awards producers were reportedly unsure about airing the explicit content and asked the duo to come up with a more family-friendly version of the track.

[118][120] In February 2025, Samberg performed "Dick in a Box" with Lady Gaga during SNL's Homecoming Concert, a special musical event in celebration of the show's 50th anniversary.

[123][124] The track's music video showed a woman lip sync to Kauffman's vocals and dance around with a gift-wrapped box in front of her crotch.

[125][126] In "Koi Pond", an episode of the sixth season of the American comedy television series The Office, Michael Scott (portrayed by Steve Carell) dresses in a suit similar to Samberg and Timberlake's characters, with a box wrapped as a present attached to his waist, while slipping a noose around his neck and faking a hanging to scare a group of young visitors.

[128][129] The following month, Facebook created a virtual gift shop for Valentine's Day that included a box with a bow on top and a hole cut into one of its sides.

"[21] "Dick in a Box" has inspired many subsequent sketches by The Lonely Island, including the similar-themed "Jizz In My Pants" and "I Just Had Sex",[134][55] and has spawned two sequels, where Timberlake and Samberg reprised their roles.