I’m not sure anyone could have predicted just how much comedic value would come from Colin Jost and Pete Davidson buying a Staten Island Ferry back in 2022. The original goal to spin it into a transportable vessel for live entertainment, but it’s mostly been a money-sucking eyesore for locals in the years since. Things have gone more positively in recent months, but everything truly came up Milhouse…er…Jost during The Simpsons’ Season 38 premiere, “"The Children's Book Job."
Having previously appeared solely as an on-screen reference in Season 31’s “The Winter of Our Monetized Content,” Colin Jost made an official guest appearance voicing himself, and I’m extremely amused that his Simpsons debut was literally just a self-deprecating joke about the ferry. Most of his ferry-related gags take zero time to address, whether via Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segments or his interviews on New Heights and more, but this one was 6+ months in the making, given the lead time of animated series.
Check out a shot of him below, and be sure to click the pic to get a closer look at the two Simpson-ified goobers on the front cover.
For those who may not be able to see, the book's title is a hilarious overstatement, and also references Pete Davidson in an amusing way.
- "Cap'n Colin And His Fabulous Ferry" with Bosun Pete
"Fabulous" is a word that one could use to describe many things, and it starts with the same letter as "ferry." But maybe that's as far as it goes.
All that said, the real gag here isn't just that Colin Jost wrote a children's book based on his ill-conceived purchse. Rather, after he reads off the playful line seen below, every single one of the kids listening to him starts groaning and griping, indicating nobody in that gymnasium thinks that the ferry is all that fabulous.
Of course, based solely on this sentence, I actually would buy a parody-esque children's book about the ferry if Jost wrote it. As he so maturely orated:
Toot-toot-toot went the ferry as it splish-splash-sploodled away from Staten Island.
I can't say I've heard the term "sploodled" before, but I'm putting it into casual rotation now.
The Simpsons can get more timely with its jokes now, as opposed to what was generally possible in the earliest days of the show's run. But I think we can all agree that making fun of Colin Jost and Pete Davidson's ferry purchase will be funny until probably the end of time if not longer.
That said, the ferry has been front and center for quite the positive update more recently, in that it was turned into a floating comedy club for a Snapple partnership in mid-September, and it seemed to be a successful venture for the duo. And thankfully for the SNL star, Scarlett Johansson’s feelings about it are slightly more positive than those of Springfield youths.
Will those two pop culture paths cross again in the future? Both shows are now airing new seasons, so be sure to tune in to find out.
