Everyone always talks about the incredible run Kenan Thompson has had on Saturday Night Live. He’s been on the show for more than two decades and is the longest tenured Not Ready For Primetime Player by a large margin, but for almost that entire stretch, Colin Jost has been right there with him. The writer, turned head writer, turned Weekend Update co-host jointed the show all the way back in 2005, just two years after Thompson. The two even shared an office for almost a decade, and that’s apparently where one of the greatest SNL recurring sketches of all-time came from.
Thompson recently joined The Rundown, which is a fun bit SNL does on its social channels where cast members pick out a sketch from the past, as if they were putting together a show Lorne Michaels style. During the segment, Thompson talked about some of his all-time favorite sketches from other comedians, as well as some of his personal favorites. That’s when the subject of Scared Straight came up, and he gave the backstory, which I had never heard before.
Me and Colin were officematers for like 8 years. That’s how Scared Straight came about. Colin had never seen it before. I showed it to him and watched his mind work… The laughter that started once we landed on him explaining things through 80s movies was so joyful. It was just like, ‘This is why they hired you. That’s the brilliant mind they want to extract from.’
If you haven’t seen any of the Scared Straight sketches before, you’re missing out. They’re a direct nod to the 1970s documentary Scared Straight, which paired troubled teens with prison inmates who told them what life inside was actually like an effort to get them to reevaluate their life choices. In SNL’s version, Thompson plays an inmate who yells at troubled teenagers, but all of the stories he tells are quite clearly references to old movies.
You can watch the magic below…
I’m firmly convinced that one of the secret weapons of Saturday Night Live has always been its unique ability to force hilarious people to hang out with each other almost constantly. The crazy hours, shared offices and all night writing sessions bring people together and allow for all kinds of wacky collaborations and partnerships that you wouldn’t have seen coming like this one.
Exactly how much longer these two continue working together remains to be seen. It’s the summer and like every summer, there’s a thousand rumors about the SNL cast and who might be staying and who might be going. I’m not sure anyone knows what’ll happen over the next few months, but I think there’s a good chance both of these two will be back. Jost has really broken out over the last year and has started appearing in a ton of non-Weekend Update sketches, and Thompson remains one of the most popular and beloved cast members on the show. Fingers crossed we get to see them work together for at least another year.
