Colin Jost and Michael Che drew gasps on the season finale of “Saturday Night Live,” treating the audience to their biannual joke swap.
Per tradition, the “Weekend Update” anchors wrote jokes for the other to read live on-air — without seeing them ahead of time.
For example, Jost kicked things off with a joke written by Che: “Mattel has introduced a new Barbie that has autism. Ugh, now it’s going to feel wrong when I have sex with it.”
Then Che read this joke written by Jost: “A new study finds that the average length of an erect penis in the country is 6.34 inches. Oh, boy. That means I’m only 6 inches below average.”
Jost then recited, “Michael B. Jordan won best actor for his role in the vampire movie ‘Sinners.’ A black vampire is just like a white vampire, except the only thing it sucks dry is the welfare state.”
Reading the cue cards, he continued, “Now, that was just a joke. I’m not a racist. And to prove it, I, Colin Jost, hereby pledge this season’s salary to Dr. Umar’s School for Black Boys. Now, y’all might not know who that is, but the brothers at home is nodding they heads. And if that’s not enough, I have a beautiful new ferry ready to give any Black person a free one-way trip back to the motherland.”
Che then had to tell a joke about how men are less likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction if they drink grape juice. As a photo of a child with a juice box flashed on screen, the comedian said it “explains why my boyfriend is always rock hard.”
Anticipating that the next joke related to Michael Jackson, Che told Jost, “You’re a terrible person.”
He went on: “Speaking of giving little boys juice, the movie ‘Michael’ won the box office again this weekend, and since a few members of the Jackson family are actually in the audience tonight, I wanted to take a moment to tell everybody what I really think: Michael Jackson did nothing wrong! He was right to molest all those kids! And they were lucky. I would have paid him to do it. And I did. That’s right, when I was 10 years old, Michael Jackson molested me. And the only thing it gave me was a fetish for middle-aged white women.”
Back to Jost: “Ye has released a new album called ‘Bully.’ So please try to separate the art from the artist and remember that Ye can make awful music and still be right about Hitler.”
Upping the stakes, Jost then recited, “Now, that joke is offensive to everybody, and I do apologize. I’d like to sacrifice the most important thing in my life: my beautiful, award-winning, world-famous … hair. That’s right, I’m shaving off. Send in the barber.”
Jost smiled uncomfortably as a man rushed behind the “Weekend Update” desk and threw a barber cape over him. As the man pulled out clippers and moved them close to Jost’s head, the comedian said, “Jerome, make me unpretty.”
But before the barber could take any hair off of Jost, Che butted in: “No, no, no! You were really going to do it? Man. You are the greatest comedian of all time.”
The joke swap became tradition in 2018 and has gotten progressively crazier over the years. In 2023, Che hired a fake “civil rights activist” to sit next to Jost and shake her head in disapproval at every racist joke. And in 2024, Che forced Jost to tell vulgar jokes about his wife, Scarlett Johansson, as she watched on a live feed from backstage.
Will Ferrell was the host of the Season 51 finale with musical guest Paul McCartney.
Watch the full joke swap below.