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Michael Che pulls a prank on Colin Jost.

Many great comedians have sat at the helm of the “Weekend Update” desk on Saturday Night Live over the show’s nearly 50 seasons. Chevy Chase was known for his cool deadpan. Dennis Miller was the hip intellectual. Norm Macdonald will go down in history for his endless OJ jokes that eventually got him removed from the desk. Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon were a great double act that was a fun mix of high-brow and low-brow humor, and who could forget Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers?

The current anchors, Michael Che and Colin Jost, will probably be best known for making fun of each other. Over the years, one of the duo’s signature bits has been writing jokes for each other and reading them live for the first time. It seems like every time they do that bit, Che finds a new way to embarrass Jost.

On April Fool's Day 2023, Che was at it again, this time with a brutal April Fool’s prank where he secretly asked the audience not to laugh at any of Jost’s jokes.

Che and Jost opened their segment with jokes about the indictment of then-former president Donald Trump, but the audience laughed much harder at Che than at Jost. A few minutes into the bit, Jost made a joke at his own expense and it received only a smattering of laughter.

"At this point, it feels like even pro-Trump people have moved on," Jost said, referring to the trial before a superimposed image of him wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and a sign that read, "LET OUR BOY GO!" appeared on the screen.

The gag was met with an audience member screaming, “You stink!" The heckle was the last straw for Jost, who dropped his head in his hand in shame. At that point, Che gave up the gag.

"I told them not to laugh at you for April Fools,'" Che told Jost, and the two couldn’t keep it together. "That's the meanest thing you've ever done to me. I'm covered in sweat,” Jost told Che through fits of laughter.

"I was truly like, 'Am I not mic'd?' And then I was like, 'Oh, I just suck," Jost joked.

The crowd broke out in applause for Jost, but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of acknowledging them after they refused to laugh at his jokes. "No, no! Don't even dare! Don't you even dare try now."

When it was Jost’s turn to tell his next joke, a bit about Florida's Ron DeSantis, Che said, “They’ll probably laugh at this next one.” And the audience did.

The episode was hosted by Abbot Elementary’s Quinta Brunson, who shined in “Traffic Altercation,” a sketch where she and Mikey Day played motorists screaming at each other in traffic. The crux of the bit was that they couldn’t hear what each other was saying, so they had to argue using hand signals.


This article originally appeared two years ago.

Saturday Night Live/Youtube

We've all had these types of conversations with our dad, apparently.

While Saturday Night Live is normally meant to produce laughs, every so often a sketch comes along that unexpectedly tugs on the heartstrings. “Calling Dad” is one of those sketches.

The scene, as part of the November 9, 2024 episode featuring comedian Bill Burr, shows two grown men (Andrew Dismukes and Devon Walker) attempting to call their fathers (Burr and Kenan Thompson) and establish an emotional connection. Unfortunately, they struggle to talk about "anything real.”

Thompson’s dad character can’t seem to delve into anything deeper than surface level sports chat—primarily how the Philadelphia Eagles were doing—while Burr barely gets out two sentences before saying “Well, I’ll let you go.”

Dismukes decides to call his dad back for another attempt, which doesn’t prove much better as Burr is solely focused on whether or not his son has had the oil changed in his car.

As the scene progresses, however, both sports and cars become metaphors for something else weighing on the dads’ minds. Thompson wistfully shares how, even though the Eagles have “been around for a while,” he was “starting to feel like maybe the Eagles don't got much time left.”

On a much more blunt note, Burr admits the real reason behind his oil change concerns, saying “my car just wants to be closer to your car because my car’s car died around the age your car is now.”

When Dismukes tries to suss out whether his dad is trying to share something a little more vulnerable than auto maintenance, Burr insists they’re only talking about cars…just before suggesting that their “cars” go to Ireland together to see where “our cars’ family is from.”

And the pièce de résistance: when Dismukes says “I love you” to dad, he is met with “Well, I’ll let you go.”

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Though the scene did have some funny moments, it clearly struck a deeper emotional chord with viewers who have clearly had these exact same types of conversations with their own fathers.

“This made me CRY. And then laugh. And then cry,” one person commented. “Make those calls. You truly will not know when they’re gone.”

“The older you get the more you will understand how real this is. Made me cry~my dad exactly!” another added.

One viewer called it “oddly profound and sentimental,” adding, “Didn’t think SNL had this kind of father/son messaging up their sleeve.”

Quite a few were compelled to revisit memories of their own late dads.

“My dad died last year. He was from Boston and when I called him he ALWAYS said ‘what's going on, buddy?’ And now I'm in tears,” said one person.

Another wrote, “My dad always asked if I've checked the oil lately and always told me to drive safe when I left my parents' house. ‘I love you’ is said in many ways. <3”

And of course, many were inspired to call their own dads immediately, even if they knew the conversation would be about the same old trivial subjects. Because maybe they're not so trivial after all. Maybe in a world where men being affectionate is still a somewhat novel concept, we cherish being told “I love you” in whatever way they can manage. After all, we won’t hear those messages forever.

Nate Bargatze and Kenan Thompson star in SNL's follow-up to "Washington's Dream."

In 2023, “Saturday Night Live” struck gold with a historical sketch where, in 1776, then-General George Washington laid out his dream for the future of America after the Revolutionary War. The twist is that his dream is to promote a series of nonsensical American cultural quirks, such as the refusal to adopt the metric system and the arbitrary ways American English differs from the UK’s.

The sketch was a great send-up of the cultural differences that separate Americans from their cousins across the pond and stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze, as Washington, delivered them in a pitch-perfect deadpan.

The sketch was the second most popular from SNL season 49 and introduced the low-key stand-up comedian to a much wider audience. On October 5, 2024, Bargatze returned to host SNL and once again donned the powdered wig as Washington. This time, America’s first president addressed his troops, played again by Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang, about his dream for America from a boat crossing the Delaware.


In the second “Washington’s Dream” sketch, the general tells his soldiers that he hopes the new country will "do our own thing with the English language."

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"I dream that one day, our great nation will have a word for the number 12. We shall call it a dozen," Bargatze's Washington says.

"And what other numbers will we have a word for?" a soldier asks.

"None," Washington replies. "Only '12' shall have its own word because we are free men, and we will be free to spell some words two different ways." Which ones? "Doughnut, and the name 'Jeff'," he explains, noting that there’s "the short way with the J and the stupid way with the G."

Washington also plans to differentiate some living animals from those on our plates. "We will also have two names for animals: One when they're alive and a different one when they become food," Washington explains. "So cows will be 'beef.' Pigs will be 'pork.'"

"And chickens, sir?" Yang asks. "That one stays. Chickens are 'chicken'," says Washington. "And we will create our own foods, and name them what we want. Like the hamburger."

"Made of ham, sir?" Day asks. "If it only were that simple," Washington adds. "A hamburger is made of beef, just as a 'buffalo wing' is made of chicken." However, he assures his troops that a hot dog is not made from man’s best friend. "A real American would never want to know what's in a hot dog, just as they will never know why."


Just like the original “Washington’s Dream,” the sketch was co-written by cast member Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell, with Mike DiCenzo.

The bit was initially conceived by SNL writer Seidell, who was surprised by how well the counterintuitive casting worked. “I forget who we originally wrote it for, but it was very much a dramatic actor who would play more of a serious Washington,” he told Indiewire. “You can see that version of it, but in hindsight Nate was the perfect person to do it because it had this charm that I don’t know that it would have with a real powerful George Washington. An Academy Award-winning actor might have taken it too seriously.”

Here is the original "Washington's Dream" sketch:

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SNL will return on Saturday, October 12, featuring host Ariana Grande and a musical performance by Stevie Nicks.

Saturday Night Live/Youtube

The GOAT is back.

Once upon a time, Dana Carvey was practically synonymous with Saturday Night Live, a fixture of the show not only for his iconic original characters like Garth Algar and Grumpy Old Man, but his dead-on, uncanny and laugh-out-loud funny impressions. Not least of which being his incredible George H.W. Bush during the 1992 election.

In an epic return to SNL, Carvey proved he’s still got it in his portrayal of Joe Biden.


In a sea of truly masterful impressions–Maya Rudolph, as to be expected, nailed it as Kamala Harris, right down to the laugh, Jim Gaffigan brought delightful “Big Dad Energy” as Tim Walz, even Andy Sandberg held his own as Douglas Emhoff—Carvey’s meandering, rambling and at times completely unhinged performance stood out.

It was a brilliant reminder of what makes Carvey so special as a performer in the first place. Though each perfectly mimicked mannerism certainly poked fun, there was never any underlying mean spiritedness or forced political agenda. In fact, Carvey told David Spade on his Fly on the Wallpodcast that honoring humor over any political message was the “the true north star” to bring what even this master impressionist called a “trickier” character to life.

Seems like Carvey’s instinct is as impeccable as ever though, cause he even managed to do the impossible of making Biden’s now signature ““Guess what? And by the way . . .” line funny every. single. time.

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The whole thing made people fall in love with Carvey all over again.

“All impressions were great. But, Carvy’s Biden was a gut laugh and a half. He hasn’t lost it since the Church Lady (my fav) and his impression of George H.W. Bush in the 90’s.”

"’But guess what...and by the way…’ gosh Dana Carvey made that better than it was probably supposed to be”

“Dana Carvey was such a great surprise. He's a perfect Joe Biden.”

‘Awww, bringing a veteran like DANA CARVEY back to do Biden was genius!”

“I cannot believe they actually got Dana back for Biden! This cold open is the best group of impressionists they have had together in DECADES.”

“Everyone was so great here, but Dana Carvey? He is so great at just totally becoming the person he is impersonating! All of the mannerisms, the voice, the pacing, the physical traits...he is the GOAT!”

“DANA CARVEYS' STILL GOT IT!! (not that I doubted it for a minute!!)”

“Dana Carvey as always the GOAT SNL political impressionist.”

Here’s to an SNL season that’s just as delightfully entertaining as this Cold Open was.