Saturday Night Live cast members often talk about how you don’t really know what’s going to happen until the cameras turn on. There’s pitches and read throughs and a full dress rehearsal, but there’s never a guarantee the actual crowd will laugh at anything until they do. That’s because comedy is a subjective art form, and while there’s a lot of overlap in what we find funny, there’s also a ton of variance. For example, last night Sarah Sherman stopped by Weekend Update and made a joke about Colin Jost and Pete Davidson’s doomed ferry boat. The reaction I had alone on my couch was a lot different than the audience’s.
Let me be more specific. I laughed out loud when she, playing Jost's fictional accountant, referenced the Staten Island ferry boat, and not a single person inside Studio 8H let out a noise. Not a laugh. Not even a cough. It was straight up dead silence before Sherman moved on to her next bit. For a second, I thought the audience was not feeling her character, but they laughed hard at her next bit and throughout the rest of the sketch. So, either they aren’t in the loop on the hilariously named Titanic II, or they just didn’t enjoy the reference. You can watch the bit in question, which starts at the 55 second mark…
For those of you who might be out of the loop, let’s back up real quick. Jost and Davidson both grew up on Staten Island. Back in 2022, they noticed the city of New York was selling one of the Staten Island ferry boats, the decommissioned John F Kennedy. The two impulsively decided to join forces with friend Paul Italia to buy it for $280,000 and change. Initially, there was a ton of good will around the purchase, as the trio announced they were going to refurbish it and turn it into a floating event space.
Unfortunately, all the positive reactions on social and kooky news write-ups about the project slowly turned into silence. Later, we started getting updates about how refurbishing a boat was a lot more time consuming and expensive than expected. At some point, it became a running joke, as Davidson and Jost both started being more self-deprecating about the project whenever it came up in interviews. Some locals started to complain, and Jost’s wife Scarlett Johansson even joked during an interview she gave that she at least wanted it to start generating enough revenue to pay for the docking fees.
This past year, it hosted a fashion show and was the set of a low budget horror movie. There’s also reportedly still work being done on the boat to get it to the point where it’ll eventually be able to host more regular events. The timetable on that is still unclear though, and many on the Internet still continue to joke that it’ll always be a money pit, which is why I enjoyed Sherman’s joke last night. If I was his accountant, that’s the first thing I’d bring up too.
Saturday Night Live is off for a few weeks, but it’ll return in early May with Abbott Elementary star Quinta Brunson, as she was announced as the next upcoming host. She’ll be joined by musical guest Benson Boone.
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