Saturday Night Live’s homecoming celebration started early for several “Weekend Update” alums Wednesday night.
Former anchors Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Seth Meyers interrupted Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show monologue last night to challenge the host to a good old-fashioned “Joke Off,” a recurring segment that’s something like the equivalent of a rap battle for topical punchlines.
Fey and Poehler—who were already Fallon’s planned lead-off interview guests for the night—were first to appear, making an entrance after Fallon delivered a less-than-stellar joke about President Trump’s executive order banning paper straws in government ultimately “disintegrating.”
“Jimmy, come on. Trump is banning paper straws and that’s the best you got?” Fey challenged, prompting the joke off As Fallon laid out the rules for the competition, Meyers came out to join in the fun.
“You weren’t really going to leave me out, were you?” Meyers asked the others.
“Yeah, we were,” they hesitantly admitted.
After each firing off their own paper straw punchlines, the trio riffed on several more setups before making their exit.
The same four former SNL players previously reunited on Weekend Update in 2011 for another Joke Off.
Fallon seems to be having a hard time getting through his monologue this week. On Monday, David Letterman dropped by announced with his first visit to The Tonight Show since Carson helmed the desk.
It’s also not the first time Weekend Update anchors have crashed the party. Colin Jost and Michael Che dropped in last summer to tell some jokes they missed while SNL was between seasons. They’ve also participated in multiple monologue joke-offs of their own in past years.
