Weekend Update Went Completely Off the Rails Last Night

For most of Saturday Night Live’s history, Weekend Update has been a reliable, mid-show crowd pleaser. The Colin Jost/Michael Che version is no different. While the jokes can be obvious or uninspired on their worst weeks, viewers can usually count on their version of the fake news to deliver a few topical laughs. But host Dave Chappelle must have dropped something funny in Jost and Che’s iced tea last night as the two comics delivered the tipsiest, most manic segment of the season. 

And yes, that’s a good thing.

The Studio 8H audience helped, whooping like it had been sniffing glue before the jokes even started. The segment got off to a solid start, with Jost cracking that Donald Trump’s official inaugural portrait “was lit, I assume, by hell opening up.”

Che upped the ante with his inauguration joke: “Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony has been moved inside the Capitol building. Hey, just like last time!”

The gloves are coming off? Fine by Jost, who fired an off-color joke in Facebook’s direction. “Meta CEO and Puerto Rican gigolo Mark Zuckerberg flew down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump. And boy, are his knees tired.”

“Trump’s inauguration day falls on Martin Luther King Day,” countered Che. “And if Dr. King were alive today, I bet Trump would walk right up to him and say, ‘Oh snap, it’s Ben Carson.’”

All solid punchlines, maybe a little edgier than usual. But let’s see if the guys can push it even further. Here’s Jost: “Robert F Kennedy, Jr., Trump's nominee to lead the nation’s health agencies, will have his Senate confirmation hearing next week. RFK has been preparing for the hearings by setting his tanning bed to Tropic Thunder.”

Blackface jokes not tasteless enough for you? How about Jost attempting to defend A.I. child pornography in a new segment called “Hear Me Out”?

“A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist was the first person to be arrested according to the new California law prohibiting the possession of A.I.-generated child porn. Which brings me to my new segment, Hear Me Out.”

“Whoa,” managed a cackling Che.

“Hear me out!” insisted Jost. “Isn’t A.I.-generated child porn the best possible solution for pedophiles? They aren’t real kids. It’s just fake kids that are generated by scanning thousands of real… Okay, now I see the problem.”

A loopy Michael Longfellow scored as he pleaded for TikTok’s survival (“You know who else was from China? That’s right, Jesus Christ”):

Before Sarah Sherman threw herself off the top rope as the original Nosferatu. “Wow, it’s much smaller than I imagined,” croaked the vampire, wiggling hyperextended, clawed fingers.

“Yes, people are always saying that about the studio,” replied Jost.

“Not the studio. Your penis, Colin! You just keep it out like that during Update?”

In other words, Nosferatu became another vehicle for Sherman to torture Jost. As always, she was relentless. “I want to suck your veiny neck!”

“Okay,” countered Jost. “Please do not touch me with your cold, slimy fingers.”

“Said your former assistant!” shouted Nosferatu, striking a classic horror pose. 

If Jost wouldn’t give up the blood, the thirsty vampire concluded that it was time to visit his favorite SNL cast member: Sarah Sherman. After all, “she's been on her period for three years straight.”

“Well, you know what I always say,” replied Jost, reading a line that Sherman clearly wrote to mortify him. “If there’s blood on the field, play ball.”

Go to bed, Weekend Update — you’re drunk. And here’s hoping you stay that way for the reason of Season 50.