Colin Jost Couldn’t Stop Laughing After Some Members Of The SNL Audience Screamed An Obscenity

There’s a long history of people letting a swear word slip during a Saturday Night Live performance, but the offending party has typically been a cast member or a host. Not the case this weekend. Instead, it was a few members of the audience who got a bit too rowdy, and the actual performers on stage who heard it happen were clearly amused by the whole thing. Colin Jost especially could not stop laughing at the absurdity of what went down.

The foul-mouthed moment in question happened during a Weekend Update segment. Ego Nwodim was doing a bit that was way better than it had any right to be about how she should host The White House Correspondents Dinner, but instead of doing any political material, she would just roast the food and make jokes that wouldn’t offend anyone. She then spent a few minutes doing intentionally lame stand-up, mostly involving food and political puns.

At one point, she started talking about filibusters and said in her personal life, she’s had her “fill of busters because these men ain’t what?” She turned the mic to the audience for a faux call and response thing and several women loudly shouted “Shit!” It clearly caught everyone on stage off guard, who reacted with shock and laughter. You can watch what happened below…

All praise to Nwodim for getting a few hilarious follow-up comments out about how the audience was going to get fined and how showrunner Lorne Michaels was going to be mad at them for swearing and going off script. I’m not sure either Colin Jost or Michael Che would have been able to do that on account of how flummoxed they clearly were. Che gave an all-time shocked reaction face, and Jost couldn’t stop laughing in the background.

There’s nothing SNL fans love more than a sketch going sideways. The chance that cast members might start laughing or someone might accidentally swear has always been a major appeal element of the show, but I think the reason why it goes so viral every time it happens is because it so rarely happens. If cast members were breaking a few times every week or someone was always improving in an NSFW way, that would just be part of the expectation.

Michaels, however, has always run a really tight ship, and the audience is aware after fifty years of cast members talking about what it’s like behind the scenes that he very much does not want things to go south. He wants to do the sketches as rehearsed; so, when something unexpected does happen, there’s an even bigger sense of danger and surprise than you’d expect.

I’m going to go ahead and upload the official version of the sketch that NBC posted. Nor surprisingly, the audience’s four letter response has been edited out, but the larger bit is still really funny and worth watching….

Weekend Update: Ego Nwodim on the White House Correspondents' Dinner - SNL - YouTube

Watch On

If you haven’t watched the entire episode yet, you should go back and do that. Host Jack Black was on form all night, and there are a ton of good moments to check out, including a Weekend Update joke making light of the Morgan Wallen debacle last weekend.

SNL will return next week with upcoming host Jon Hamm and musical guest Lizzo. It should be another fantastic episode.