
Michael Che and Colin Jost deliver countless “Weekend Update” jokes of their own each week on Saturday Night Live, but they might be best known for the ones they force each other to tell.
In the duo’s recurring Joke Swap segments, Che and Jost write jokes that the other person is required to tell, despite not having seen the material ahead of time. Naturally, the tradition becomes a minefield of embarrassment and cancellable remarks for the two comedians, which has made it a viral hit.
What began as a simple one-off premise in 2015 has grown into a highlight of Che and Jost’s time at the desk together. Here’s a look back at the nine Joke Swaps that Che and Jost have managed to survive so far.
Thanksgiving 2015
The first Joke Swap was done in celebration of Thanksgiving in 2015. Jost and Che gifted each other just one joke each. Jost used the opportunity to make Che deliver a weak joke, while Che went with the technique that would most occur in future segments: making Colin mock himself.
Christmas 2018
Switching the premise of the segment to a Christmas gift exchange, we see Che and Jost give each other controversial jokes, solidifying the segment’s tone of well-meaning hosts who have no choice but to deliver the outrageous jokes written for them. The humor comes not just from the jokes, but the anchors’ worry and shock after reading the cards… especially Jost, who tends to get the brunt of it.
Season 44 Finale (2019)
Jost and Che brought back the segment for the Season 44 finale, with the joke exchange serving as an “end-of-the-year gift” to each other—and the audience. The pair force each other to tackle race, sex, and the Catholic church. “You’re gonna get me murdered,” Jost tells Che after a particular groan-inducing joke he was required to recite.
Christmas 2019
“The idea this year is to make it fun,” Jost told Che as they introduced the annual holiday Joke Swap. “And not try to ruin anyone’s career, or get them stabbed on the subway, or backstage at the Eddie Murphy show.”
“We’ll see what happens,” Che replied, before a segment that ended in the ostensible firing of the cue card guy.
Season 45 Finale (2020)
The most serious of the Joke Swaps came amid the pandemic-era run of the remotely filmed SNL at Home. “As you know, Colin, I lost my grandmother this week,” Che said. “And coming back to work really made me feel better. Especially with you.”
“Her favorite part of the show was when we would do Joke Swap,” he continued before asking Jost to take part in an impromptu one-way joke exchange. Click play for Jost’s delivery of a joke that makes him squirm in his seat; stay for Che’s reveal that his grandmother (who reportedly died from COVID) had actually never seen the show.
“She woke up at, like, 4 a.m. dude. To pray,” Che said. “You think she was watching Saturday Night Live? Never.” (This is the only installment where Jost doesn’t get to return the punishment to Che with a joke of his own.)
Christmas 2020
Again, Che forced Jost to make jokes about the Black community, while Che gets material about his sex life and Jeffrey Epstein. Most notable, though, is when Che gets Jost to make a joke about his wife—actress Scarlett Johansson—for the first time. (Jost and Johansson had gotten married just two months earlier.)
Season 46 Finale (2021)
“No one’s gonna get cancelled. No one’s families are gonna get threatened,” Jost said hopefully at the top of their seventh Joke Swap. Alas, the only time Che cut Jost any slack on jokes about the Black community is when he threw in one where Jost declares Woody Allen innocent.
Christmas 2023
Here, Che introduced a new element into the Joke Swap to kick things up a notch. “Before we start, there’s someone very special here,” Che tells Jost, “who was last on the show [in] Season 3, 46 years ago: Poet, author, and activist… Dr. Hattie Davis.” Jost facepalms as he’s forced to make jokes about women and Black America in front of the supposed activist. Though Jost didn’t know it at the time, “Dr. Hattie Davis” was only a fictional activist, played by actress Daphne Skeeter.
Jost suffered most in this Joke Swap, though managed to gain some ground on Che with jokes about Michael Jackson and the turmoil in the Middle East. But Che gets the best shots in with the closer, penning two more Johansson jokes for Jost—including one that also manages to tie in Davis again.
Season 49 Finale (2024)
Building off of the last installment’s inclusion of a purported civil rights hero, Che surprised Jost by incorporating a rabbi this time around. But while Hattie Davis was a fictional character, Rabbi Jill was anything but. At this point, a Joke Swap wouldn’t feel complete without Jost being forced to tell a joke about his wife—and Che delivered once again. It’s no wonder Johansson has come to dread the segment.
“I black out for that period of the night,” the actress said in a recent interview.
Still, one wonders what made Jost more uncomfortable: the joke about his wife, or the puppet he had to use for his next joke.
Jost became a co-anchor (alongside Cecily Strong) when Seth Meyers left to host Late Night in 2014. Che joined the show as a writer in 2013, then took a brief hiatus in the summer of 2014 to work on The Daily Show. Ahead of the Season 40 premiere, it was announced that Che was returning to the show and replacing Strong at the “Weekend Update” desk.
Jost and Che are now the longest-running anchor lineup in the history of “Weekend Update.”