Who: Michael Che

Cast Member Since: 2014

I don’t want to overpraise 36-year-old Michael Che, “but hear me out” … he’s keeping Saturday Night Live‘s longest running segment fresh and unpredictable.

By no means is this a knock on his Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost, who is also doing a commendable job, but Che’s point of view is a different kind of funny the segment needed. Jost, while perfectly competent, at times feels like an extension of the way Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers covered the news – left-leaning with a pinch of smug, but not so biased as to turn off half the audience.

Che, on the other hand, doesn’t care what you think and keeps things honest. In the past season alone, he’s admitted to not voting, warned young people not to get all their news from him, questioned why he doesn’t care more about climate change, and in some cases, almost displayed a willingness to hear President Trump out on whatever the latest headline is, just to see how wild things can get. In other words, while Che is no right-winger, he rises above the repetitive “Trump is bad and stupid” punchlines that dominate late night television.

Perhaps this is why, despite being credited as a co-anchor, Weekend Update isn’t exactly 50/50 in terms of air time and joke ratio between Jost and Che. Out of the 2018-2019 season’s 21 episodes, Che only had the opening lead joke spot three times, and on average has under six jokes per episode (Jost, at times, seems to double that). This, however, doesn’t take into account Che’s Update guest interactions. The higher profile/real-world news caricatures like Eric & Donald Trump Jr. (Alex Moffat and Mikey Day), Senator Elizabeth Warren (Kate McKinnon) or Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg (McKinnon) tend to be paired with Jost, while Che gets more of the original characters like Baskin Johns and Angel (Heidi Gardner) or Carrie Krum (Aidy Bryant).

And while Che certainly weighs in on current events and Trump (he reminded America that Trump “raw dogs” pornstars on two separate episodes this past season), he seems most excited and at his funniest during the jokes that tend to fall in the second half of the segment, an example being Dunkin’ Donuts shortening their name (due to diabetes), Johnnie Walker’s Game of Thrones branded whiskey (so strong, it will make you forget she’s your aunt) or Chris Rock’s reboot of the Saw horror movie franchise (it will be called, Seent“).

Personally, and although I would love Jost and Che’s time to be better balanced, I don’t have much issue with the formula of Jost tackling the political stuff up front, splitting the guests, and Che taking the sillier stuff. Lorne Michaels no doubt knows who is better suited for what, but with the show making an effort to tone down the Trump coverage a bit towards the end of last season, maybe Che, about to enter his sixth season, finally gets to make a bigger stamp on the segment.

Side note: watching Che and Jost’s recurring bits can be amusing over a given season. For instance, Che appears to be fond of call backs (ie: Che makes a joke, Jost makes a new joke, then Che continues his original joke when the camera returns to him). My favorite example of this came early in the season with his confusion over The Cosby Show‘s lead character being named Cliff Huxtable. Che also uses the “OK…but hear me out” transitional line quite a bit to get to punchlines when poking fun at more obvious topics like why scientists spend so much time on meatless food alternatives when salad is readily available. Lastly, he often uses the punchline “for reference, here is what (insert joke) looks like” just as his over the shoulder graphic swaps from a headline to celebrity image. Che did this with a photo of Steven Tyler of Aerosmith after reading a headline about a suitcase containing 100 lbs of cocaine being left at JFK Airport.

Below are some of my favorite Michael Che moments form Season 44:

Weekend Update Segment: Really!?! With Seth Meyers, Colin Jost and Michael Che

Episode: Seth Meyers/Paul Simon (10/13/18)

Note: When Seth Meyers returned to host early in the 2018-2019 season, he resurrected the Really!? bit he began with co-anchor Amy Poehler during the 2006-2007 season. Meyers and Jost make the standard Trump/common sense jokes, but Che gets the biggest laugh by revealing her negotiated four uses of the n-word for the 2018-2019 season, which he promptly began using.

Weekend Update Segment: Michael Che on Bidets

Episode: Jason Momoa/Mumford & Sons (12/8/18)

Note: In an interesting change of pace, Che jumps to the other side of the Update desk for his “own” Update Feature inspired by a TUSHY bidets subway ads.

SNL REPORT CARD / MICHAEL CHE: 3 Coneys

SCALE:

4 Coneys = Excellent / 3 Coneys = Good / 2 Coneys = Needs Improvement / 1 Coney = Worst

Jason Nummer still wonders what a second SNL season with Brooks Wheelan would have been like. You can follow him on Twitter at @jrnummer.

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