Saturday Night Live returned to television over the weekend, and the late-night sketch show wasted little time in causing controversy. NBC censors likely got quite the shock when "Weekend Update" hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che rattled off a couple "s-bombs," which came after host Sam Rockwell already dropped an f-bomb earlier in the show. The latter swear was likely unplanned, but Jost and Che's use of the word "shithole" appeared to be the show's response to NBC asking the SNL cast members to censor themselves for its live broadcast. Check out the "Weekend Update" s-bombs for yourself:
The shithole storm (so to speak) first swelled up at the start of "Weekend Update" when host Colin Jost mentioned President Donald Trump's alleged remarks about African countries. Jost first said "s-hole" when referring to the expletive, and then informed the Saturday Night Live audience that the censored take on the word was what NBC asked them to say when covering the story. Jost commented on the irony of NBC's wish to censor the word when the President of the United States allegedly used it. Then Jost dropped the "shithole" bomb, which delighted the audience.
Michael Che said "shithole" shortly after, and the whole bit became a commentary on what SNL would not say what the President might say. NBC responded by scrubbing the expletives on the West Coast airings, although the video was left unedited on SNL's official YouTube page.
NBC also managed to scrub Sam Rockwell's slip up, which happened earlier in the episode. Rockwell played a frustrated host of a science program on PBS before he took things a bit too far and told the children of the sketch (played by Mikey Day and Cecily Strong) they couldn't be "so fucking stupid." Rockwell appeared immediately apologetic when he slipped up, although his reaction was in line with how the character would've reacted in the sketch. Given that, it's possible Rockwell may not have realized what he had done until the audience gave a shocked reaction, which made the moment even funnier:
The verdict is still out on how Saturday Night Live will respond to the cast members using word "shithole," but the show did fire former cast member Jenny Slate after she let the word "fuck" slip on the show. SNL can't fire Sam Rockwell considering he's just a guest host, and hosts swearing on the program accidentally isn't nearly as uncommon as a cast member. In fact, Kristen Stewart dropped an f-bomb just a little under a year ago on SNL, so perhaps fans can expect another one to drop on the show during Season 44 in early 2019.
Saturday Night Live is all new on NBC with host Jessica Chastain and musical guest Troye Sivan on Saturday, January 20 at 11:30 p.m. For information on the return and premieres of other shows in 2018, be sure to visit our midseason premiere guide.
