Colin Jost was left wondering if he is being surveilled by the U.S. government, when a Saturday Night Live pitch dismissed as “too ridiculous” proceeded to play out in real life.
At a mid-April religious service held at the Pentagon, SecDef Pete Hegseth offered a prayer in the form of “CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect [the Bible verse] Ezekiel 25:17,” he said.
The CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue) prayer, though, actually is derived from a famous monologue from the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction, which itself borrowed a verse from the Bible’s Book of Ezekiel.
Hegseth’s conflation of source material made headlines and invited mockery—and, funnily enough, it almost existed as an SNL Cold Open before it ever happened.
Appearing on Thursday’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jost in discussing his impression of Hegseth said, “We were pitching ideas for one of the Cold Opens, like, two months ago, and I was like, ‘Would it be funny if Hegseth did that Bible verse that they have in Pulp Fiction? Remember, from Ezekiel, Samuel L. Jackson…?’
“We talked about it [in the writers room] and were like, ‘That would be too ridiculous,’ and it would take up all this time in the Cold Open.” As such, the idea was nipped in the bud.
“And then he for real did it! Like, two weeks later,” Jost marveled to Fallon.
“I was like, ‘Well, the good news is I’m being surveilled. So that’s a relief,'” Jost deadpanned. “The room is listening.’ It was crazy.”
Watch Jost discuss his Hegseth impression and the Pulp Fiction coincidence in the video at top, and revisit the real Hegseth’s “CSAR 25:17” prayer—juxtaposed with the Samuel L. Jackson monologue—below.
