Saturday Night Live / NBC
Colin Jost and Michael Che‘s annual joke swap on Saturday Night Live has become a tradition in recent years and it has been immensely popular with SNL fans. The gist is simple, they each write jokes and the other reads them during their ‘Weekend Update’ segment.
The idea is to write jokes that are so offensively hilarious the person sitting across the desk can barely keep a straight face while read them. And in recent years, the two have been close to equals in the task at hand on Saturday Night Live.
Colin Jost And Michael Che’s Annual Joke Swap On Saturday Night Live (2025)
This year there was a twist! It always happens on the last show before Christmas, so that was nothing new. But if Colin Jost is to be believed, and he’s an actor/writer so there’s really no reason we should believe him but we will, this year he believed Michael Che when they agreed to not wrote jokes for each other.
Michael Che forged ahead writing jokes that would make Colin Jost’s skin crawl as he read them on camera. But unlike in years past, Colin Jost had not written any jokes for Michael Che to read so this was a one-sided slaughtering.
Check it out:
I’m typically a cynic on the Internet but I am choosing to believe here. I want to live in a world where Colin Jost genuinely believed his Weekend Update co-host wasn’t going to do him dirty.
The idea that most of the people in the writer’s room were able to make it through the week pulling one over on Colin Jost warms my soul.
And for what it’s worth, the joke swap was not the most unhinged moment this year. The Home Alone sketch was completely off the rails.
Of course, the reality is Colin was probably aware in some sense that it was going to happen but likely didn’t know how bad Che’s jokes would be. And ultimately, the tradition lives on another year which is what SNL fans want as this pre-Christmas joke swap has become one of SNL‘s most viral annual traditions.