How Colin Jost Is Single-Handedly Saving SNL

By Deadline Courtney | Miscellaneous | April 1, 2014 |

By Deadline Courtney | Miscellaneous | April 1, 2014 |

Every season, some naysayer has to point out that this, THIS, is the year SNL finally sucks. But who could have predicted that the most fruitful time of the show’s 40-year run would come just in the last year or so, under the watchful eye of wunderkind Colin Jost. He was a Harvard Lampoon, you know.

For many of us, we thought the reign of Tina Fey was something spectacular, but when compared to the Time of the Jost, that Fey time is a fat sack of crap. I’m sorry, I’m not much with words, myself. I wasn’t a Lampoon. Jost was a Lampoon, you know.

Under his throneship, Weekend Update has been given new life. First, they got rid of that dead weight Cecily Strong. I mean, let’s be honest—they did the woman thing with Fey and Poehler. Now they don’t need to again for a really long time. And the powerful pair of Jost and Che have brought a sensitivity to the important issues we so desperately need in these times, and a dry understanding wit about cultural moments.

And when he’s not writing the best SNL sketches we’ve seen in years, he’s writing scathing indictments of culture for the New Yorker, pieces so fraught with complexity that his talent simply pours out from the words, leaving your computer a goopy mess of sweet syrupy delight. Pieces like this one:

I will slap you.

You heard me.

Yeah, you. I will slap you.

You want to look at me like that?

I’ll slap you so hard you’re gonna wish I hadn’t. I’ll slap you so hard you’re gonna be, like, “Don’t.”

It goes on like that for 641 words, 641 precious words.

I don’t know what more to say but thank you. Thank you, Colin Jost. Thank you for the laughter. So, so much laughter.