Weekend update went completely off track last night

On By Littum

For most of the Saturday Night Live 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 hosted by Dave Chappelle must have dropped some fun in Jost and Che’s iced tea last night as the two comics delivered the drunkest, most manic segment of the season.

And yes, that’s a good thing.

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The Studio 8H audience helped out, booing like they’d sniffed glue before the jokes even started. The segment got off to a solid start, with Jost blurting out that Donald Trump’s official portrait “was lit, I guess, by hell breaking loose.”

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

Do the gloves come off? Nice of Jost to fire 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,” Che countered. “And if Dr. King were alive today, I bet Trump would walk right up to him and say, ‘Oh snap, that’s Ben Carson.'”

All solid punchlines, maybe a little more edgy 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 Tropical Thunder.”

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

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

“Wow,” managed a cackling Che.

“Hear me!” Jost insisted. “Isn’t AI-generated child porn the best possible solution for pedophiles? They’re not real kids. They’re just fake kids generated by scanning thousands of real ones… Okay, now I see the problem.”

A sleazy Michael Longfellow scored when pleading for TikTok’s survival (“You know who else was from China? That’s right, Jesus Christ”):

Before Sarah Sherman threw herself out of the square as the original Nosferatu. “Wow, it’s a lot smaller than I imagined,” the vampire croaked, wiggling hyperextended, itchy fingers.

“Yeah, people always say that about the studio,” Jost replied.

“Not the studio. Your penis, Colin! Are you just holding it out like that while updating?”

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,” Jost replied. “Please don’t touch me with your cold slimy fingers.”

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

If Jost would not give up the blood, the thirsty vampire concluded that it was time to visit his favorite SNL Starring: Sarah Sherman. After all, “she’s had her period for three years straight.”

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

Go to bed, Weekend Update – you’re drunk. And we hope you stay that way because of Season 50.