In a frame story, Hader and Samberg pitch their new ultra low-budget Digital Short, Laser Cats! to SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels. In the Laser Cats! short itself (a short within a short), Hader and Samberg play the heroes Nitro and Admiral Spaceship in a post-nuclear war world in which cats can shoot lasers from their mouths and are used as weapons. They are saving the princess (Lindsay Lohan) from the evil Robotron (Will Forte). Rachel Dratch makes an appearance, disguising herself as the princess/Lohan. Jorma Taccone appears in the opening credits for Laser Cats!. Fred Armisen also makes a cameo.

Laser Cats! is shot in the SNL offices with gleeful haphazardness because, according to Samberg in the special Saturday Night Live in the 2000s, “it’s supposed to suck.”

Samberg and Hader interrupt Lorne Michaels' dinner with Christopher Dodd (appearing as himself) to attempt to pitch Laser Cats! again, this time with a scene enhanced by 3D glasses. The plot revolves around a ban on all laser cats and a battle against the corrupt Mayor Top-Hat (Thompson). Christopher Walken appears as a general.

Episode host Steve Martin walks into the office of Lorne Michaels and asks if he could air a short video that he and "some film people" made, which turns out to be yet another installment of Laser Cats!. It becomes evident that Samberg and Bill Hader have put Martin up to the task of presenting the short, crediting him as Executive Producer as well. A "half human, half Laser Cat, half RoboCop" named Cyber-Face (Kenan Thompson) is presented to a group of scientists by their colleague (Will Forte) but quickly goes haywire. Admiral Spaceship (Samberg) and Nitro (Hader) intervene to put an end to its killing spree, and are shocked to find out that Cyber-Face is Admiral Spaceship's estranged father (Martin) right before he is gunned down by police officers. Cyeber-Face apologizes for being a deadbeat dad and reveals that Spaceship and Nitro are brothers before self-destructing. Michaels kicks everyone out of his office in disgust.

Samberg and Hader once again try to persuade Lorne Michaels with another Laser Cats! movie with some "help" from James Cameron (appearing as himself). The short includes many references to James Cameron's films, including Aliens (Sigourney Weaver reprises her role as Ellen Ripley), The Terminator, Titanic, and Avatar.

Saturday Night Live Backstage is a 2011 documentary comedy TV movie.

Hader and Samberg again use a celebrity (Tom Hanks) to pitch a new Laser Cats film to Lorne Michaels; this time, a musical version which includes parodies of Cats and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. It is revealed that Hader and Samberg have stolen Wilson the volleyball to blackmail Hanks. Episode host and musical guest Elton John portrays the villain and Carmelo Anthony plays a security guard.

Despite Lorne Michaels' objections, Hader and Samberg show him the latest Laser Cats short – this time directed by Steven Spielberg (appearing as both himself and a "Hitchcockian" cameo in the short), which contains many references to his films, including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.