There is no current Weekend Update segment that gets more buzz than the Joke Swap. The vicious twice yearly segment in which Michael Che and Colin Jost write hidden jokes for the other to read live on the air typically breaks out in a big mainstream way. If tradition holds, we’ll get another one on next week’s episode of SNL, and thanks to a single look Che gave Jost during this week’s Update, fans are bracing for it to be particularly vicious.
Last night’s Weekend Update segment started out harmless enough with the usual stream of Trump jokes and random musings about current events, but it took a bit of an unexpected detour when Jost hit Che with a joke about how the movie with the least Golden Globe nominations was his Hold Up, Madea Got A Daughter?! You can watch the moment in question below…
The anchors, of course, regularly take shots at one another. On paper, this one definitely isn’t over the line compared to their usual banter, but fans felt like they saw a little glimmer in Che’s eye. They felt like they saw his mind turning in a way that said, “I’m gonna tag you back during the joke swap next week.” I saw the same thing. Look at this sideeye…
It’s unclear if Jost blindsided Che by secretly creating that graphic and replacing whatever the written joke was that he was expecting or if he was just playfully acting like he was mad. Fans certainly think it was the former, as the top comment underneath the video on YouTube is someone saying you can tell Che is making a mental note to be “extra savage” during the upcoming joke swap.
The joke swap, of course, forces each anchor to read jokes written by the other that they’ve never seen before. More often than not, that means Jost is forced to read a lot of risky racial jokes that are the type of thing that could get a man cancelled, as well as risky jokes about his wife Scarlett Johansson that are the type of thing that could get a man divorced. Che, conversely, tends to get a lot of jokes that make fun of his colorful dating history, as well as jokes about really contentious religious and world politics issues that people typically want no part of commenting on.
The show hasn’t announced the joke swap is coming, but we typically get it on the last episode of the year and the last episode of the season. The former is coming up next week, as SNL returns with its annual pre-Christmas episode this coming Saturday night with host Ariana Grande. Given the popularity of Wicked, it should be one of the more popular episodes of the season, but I guess for the purposes of the joke swap, it really doesn’t matter. History would say it’ll be one of the most shared videos on social media and one of the most watched videos on YouTube of the season.
I have no idea how many more joke swaps we’re going to get from Che and Jost. There should be another one to end the season, but beyond that, it’s an open question. Rumors swirled at the end of last year and into the summer that the longest tenured Weekend Update hosts in the history of the show might finally be leaving. They ultimately came back and have said nothing about the future. Personally, I’d love to see them just keep coming back, but at this point, nothing is promised and we need to appreciate every last jab the two are able to land on each other.
