For more than a decade, “Saturday Night Live” writers Colin Jost and Michael Che have marked breaks and finales with a joke swap segment. The tradition forces the “Weekend Update” co-anchors to perform jokes the other has written for them live, without the benefit of a pre-show read.
Che and Jost typically take the opportunity to needle and embarrass each other, with Che pushing Jost to read racist bits and Jost forcing Che to admit to perversions. Jost’s wife, actress Scarlett Johansson, is also a frequent target. The pair closed out the 51st season of “SNL” with a game of chicken that nearly pushed Jost to shave his head on national television.
The bit started off with barbs about sexual dysfunction, Black vampires and Barbie’s recently released doll with autism before both hosts were forced to defend extremely controversial musicians.
Che had to stand behind the Michael Jackson biopic that conspicuously leaves out much of the pop star’s life after the 1980s.
“I wanted to take a moment to tell everybody what I really think,” Che was forced to say. “Michael Jackson did nothing wrong. He was right to molest all those kids.”
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Che immediately got Jost back.
“Ye has released a new album called ‘Bully.’ So, please try to separate the art from the artist,” Jost said. “Ye can make awful music and still be right about Hitler.”
Watch the sketch below via YouTube:
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