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If you've caught even a single episode of Saturday Night Live on the 2026 TV schedule, you know Sarah Sherman has turned roasting Colin Jost into one of her signature moves. But even she recently learned that one joke about the Weekend Update anchor had to go. The reason had less to do with the insult being too harsh and more to do with Michael Che already having a bigger prank loaded in the chamber.
During an appearance on The Zack Sang Show, Sherman talked about how her Weekend Update segments with Jost come together, with the show’s TikTok account later posting a clip from the conversation. She explained that, despite how brutal the jokes can sound on air, Jost is not walking into the segment blind. He sees the material during the usual SNL process and helps make it work before the live broadcast. She said:
He knows, and he helps. By the time it's on air, we've seen this now, like three or four times, whether it's at table read, run through, dress rehearsal.
The comedy performer's Update appearances often make it look like she has wandered over from another sketch just to emotionally vandalize Jost’s desk. In reality, he is part of the bit, which is why the jokes can get so nasty without seeming genuinely mean. Their whole rhythm depends on Jost trying to keep a straight face while Sherman turns him into a human piñata wearing a suit.
Still, one recent joke had to be removed, and the comic said the request came from one of the Update writers. The bit involved Sherman making fun of her own mullet before Jost told her she looked better in a wig. She said:
The one time one of the Update writers was like, 'Hey, can you cut this joke?’ I wrote a joke in the most recent Update that I did, which got cut for time, not holding any grudges about it, it's all good, totally cool, I don't mind. I had a joke, I was making fun of my hair, and then I said something like 'I know I look like shit with my mullet.' And then Colin's like, 'You look better in a wig.' And then I was like, 'I don't want to wear a wig every day like you.' And he goes, 'It's not a wig, it's a weave!' And then one of the writers came up to me, and was like, 'Hey, you have to cut that joke.'
The SNL scene-stealer was confused by that note because, by her own measure, she had said far worse things to Jost on the air. As she put it:
I've called him a pedophile, I've called him a Nazi, I've called him everything under the sun, and I'm like 'Oh my god, why can't I say he's wearing a wig?' And then I found out they were doing a whole bit in Weekend Update about him getting his head shaved.
That “whole bit” was part of the latest Jost and Che joke swap, the recurring Weekend Update tradition where the anchors write brutal jokes for each other to read cold on air. In the Season 51 finale version, Che pushed the prank further by bringing out a barber and setting up a fake haircut for Jost. The bit stopped before Jost actually lost his hair, but he later appeared during the goodnights with a bald cap, which NBC’s own recap described as part of the night’s jaw-dropping joke swap.
So Sarah Sherman’s joke was not too mean. It was just wandering into the same haircut-shaped lane as Che’s bigger stunt. In a way, that is even funnier. On SNL, apparently, you can accuse Colin Jost of almost anything, but you cannot step on the hair joke if Che already called dibs.
