Bet You Can Guess Who Michael Che’s SNL Joke About A ‘Husband-Carrying Contest’ Was About

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I’m not saying the Saturday Night Live crowd likes it when the cast members are mean to each other, but I will say they get a kick out of the stars having a little good-natured fun at each others’ expense. It happens now and again in sketches, especially when James Austin Johnson rambles as President Trump, but the most common time it happens is on Weekend Update. The co-anchors occasionally take some shots at the cast members who show up to do bits and vice versa, but more often than not, they take shots at each other.

This week’s SNL attracted a lot of notice thanks to Harry Styles hosting, but it was Weekend Update that had my attention. The segment was another great example of perfectly-timed trolling when Michael Che turned a joke about a “wife-carrying contest” into a joke about a “husband-carrying contest.” I bet you can guess who was the unfortunate recipient of that left hook. Colin Jost. It was obviously Colin Jost. Here’s the text of the joke…

The winners of the annual wife-carrying contest in England was a couple from Finland. Once again, the winner of the husband-carrying contest was Scarlett (Johansson).

I have no idea if the joke was discussed in advance. Jost and Che are well-known for going off script to take a shot at each other. Sometimes it’s via planned segments like the recurring Joke Swaps and sometimes it’s via a random joke one of them just decided to stick in there to have a little fun at the other’s expense.

Either way, Jost reacted with a positive spirit. Here’s the face he made after the comment…

That’s the face of a man who knows he’s been hit with a good joke. There’s no point arguing or firing back aggressively. Sometimes you just take a sassy comment from one of your friends and there’s nothing else to do but mentally accept you got roasted. You basically have two options. You can file it away for a time in the future in which you can roast that same friend back with an unrelated comment or you can admit you’ve been bested by dunking on yourself a little bit to show you don’t care.

Jost picked the second path, though I assume he also took note and is planning to get Che back in the coming weeks. Here’s a look at his comment…

We both put food on the table. It’s just different kinds of food.

The line between being mean and taking a humorous shot at a friend is hard to explain, but it’s easy to understand when you see a specific interaction. It has to do with body language and tone and what we perceive as the unsaid sentiment behind the comment. Che and Jost are masters at finding that line. Even when they say the most horrible things about each other (or make each other read the most horrible things about their partners), they always use their faces, body language and word choices to convey there’s a lot of love there.

It’s a dynamic that has served them well for years, and it’s why, despite co-anchoring together since 2014, fans still want to keep seeing them return each year. The dynamic just works and likely will continue to work as long as they stick around. You can see what I mean in the segment below, which includes the joke in question…

No announcements have been made about their futures, but as an SNL superfan, I actually feel better about them coming back than I did last year. Jost has started appearing in sketches outside of Weekend Update on a regular basis, and he looks like he’s having a ton of fun. I’m not sure if his long-term plan is to continue as a writer or an actor or a ferry boat captain, but if he wants to be an actor, he would be well-served by putting in another year or two in front of the camera.