Key Points
Colin Jost was nearly forced to shave his head on Saturday Night Live during his biannual joke swap with his “Weekend Update” co-anchor, Michael Che.
Luckily, Che took pity on him and stepped in before the barber could chop off Jost’s “beautiful, award-winning, world-famous hair.”
Or did he? Jost debuted his new bald look during the goodnights of the season 51 finale.
Colin Jost knows a thing or two about committing to the bit.
Despite the distress it so clearly causes him, the “Weekend Update” cohost keeps coming back for round after round of his biannual joke swap with Michael Che, in which one anchor must cold-read jokes written by the other.
Previously, the bit has endangered Jost’s reputation, his pride, and his relationship with his wife, Scarlett Johansson. But to mark the season 51 finale of Saturday Night Live, Che decided to up the ante, putting Jost’s most precious possession on the line.
“I’d like to apologize,” Jost said during the segment, after he was forced to read a joke in which he offended “everyone” by claiming that rapper Ye (a.k.a. Kanye West) was “right about Hitler.”
Jost continued, “To apologize, I’d like to sacrifice the most important thing in my life: my beautiful, award-winning, world-famous… hair.”
The comedian appeared visibly alarmed as he continued. “That’s right, I’m shaving it off,” he said. “Send in the barber!”
Colin Jost and Michael Che with a barber on ‘SNL’
Credit: NBC
At that point, a barber walked on stage, razor in hand. Though he was shook, Jost then sat up, looking ready to go through with it, and declared, “Jerome, make me unpretty!”
Luckily, Che took pity on him and stepped in just as the razor buzzed toward Jost’s head.
“No, no!” Che yelled, then looked at Jost, who collapsed on the table. “You were really gonna do it?! Man, you are the greatest comedian of all time.”
Jost laughed it off, admitting, “I was so scared.”
But his commitment didn’t end there. Later, during the last goodnights of the season, Jost was seen milling around the stage with a freshly shaved head. His shiny new look got shocked reactions from a number of his castmates, who clearly didn’t expect Jost to fully embrace his bald era.
Colin Jost during the final ‘SNL’ goodnights of season 51
Credit: NBC
While Che got the last laugh, the other comedian got a few good licks of his own. The harshest among them was making Che joke about the new Michael Jackson biopic, including announcing what he “really” thinks about the allegations of child sex abuse against the pop star.
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The joke swap has become a biannual “Weekend Update” tradition since the duo first began doing it in 2018. With each entry, the bit gets progressively crazier as the hosts look for new ways in — including Che hiring a fake civil rights activist to sit beside Jost and express disgust as he made racially charged quips and, on a separate occasion, forcing Jost to tell vulgar jokes about Johansson while she watched backstage with a camera trained on her reaction.
During a recent visit to Jason and Travis Kelce‘s New Heights podcast, Jost admitted that the bit was his idea. “We originally did it as just jokes that we weren’t able to tell early in the year, and then I — perhaps foolishly — suggested, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we didn’t know what was coming?'” he recounted.
Jost added that Che was unusually enthusiastic about the idea. “I really brought it on myself.”
Watch the latest joke swap, hair scare and all, above.
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