You Can Get the Jokes on Weekend Update Anywhere
It ain’t easy being Colin Jost and Michael Che.
Back in the Chevy Chase days, Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update only had to compete with Johnny Carson when dissecting the week’s current events. Carson generally didn’t take off the gloves when it came to politics — a punchline about “Congress can’t get anything done these days” was about as biting as he got. That made it borderline shocking when Chase delivered news updates like: “UNICEF fell under attack this week when Syria formerly protested the charity’s new Christmas card, which says, in 10 different languages, ‘Let’s kill the Arabs and take their oil.’”
But things got trickier for Weekend Update as more comics entered the late-night game. David Letterman and Conan O’Brien began adding their two cents, followed by today’s Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, John Oliver and Taylor Tomlinson. Throw in all the professional smart-asses on social media, and you have a symphony of comedic voices weighing in on every hot news story, many of them in real time.
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By the time we get to Saturday night, what’s there left to say?
So we get it, Jost and Che — you have a tough job, trying to make soup out of that turkey leg after everyone else gets first bite at the meat. But that’s no excuse for the guys not sharpening their knives.
Take this week’s assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and the torrent of social media reactions. What should have been biting social commentary about frustration with a failed healthcare system turned into Jost punchlines about how easy it was for the killer to escape.
“This week, New York City officials sent a tough message on crime: If you shoot somebody in the middle of the street, you better get on your bike, hop on a bus and get the heck out of here, mister.”
“The manhunt continues for the assassin who gunned down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare on Wednesday. And it really says something about America that a guy was murdered in cold blood and the two main reactions were, ‘Yeah, well, health care stinks,’ and also, ‘Girl, that shooter hot.’”
Isn’t Jost missing the bigger picture here? The national conversation focused on how the inequities of a broken healthcare system led to tragedy. Jost joked about how the cops were too busy posing in front of the 30 Rock Christmas tree.
Could Che do any better?
“New York City police say that they were able to get the smiling picture of the suspect after the man apparently was caught on camera at a local hostel, flirting with a female employee whose name has been reported as Lucky S. Bechalive.”
Oof. You could head to Twitter/X or Bluesky or Tumblr or other late-night comics for funnier, harsher and more incisive takes.
Yeah yeah yeah, Saturday Night Live has big corporate advertisers and can’t get away with those kinds of jokes. But so did Chevy Chase, Norm Macdonald and Ronny Chieng (above). Che and Jost prove they can get edgy when they’re doing their annual joke swaps, so they have it in them. It’s time to bring back that fearlessness to Weekend Update — if not, there are plenty of other places we can find it.
