Mastering your cue card-reading skills can be stressful enough for a first-time Saturday Night Live host. Now imagine if you were colorblind.
That was the situation for Nate Bargatze, who first hosted last season. The comedian visited Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday night ahead of his return to SNL as this weekend’s host, and revealed the trouble he encountered last time around.
Bargatze explained that he has troubling distinguishing between black, brown, green, and red—all colors typically used on cue cards to distinguish each actor’s lines in a scene. But in an unusual move, Bargatze didn’t disclose his colorblindness to SNL’s cue card handler (and LateNighter columnist) Wally Feresten.
Feresten has helped other hosts with the issue in the past. When Lara Flynn Boyle hosted, he devoted extra time to running through cue cards with her to make sure she had them down pat.
Bargatze, however, didn’t seem too concerned during his hosting debut. But the issue became apparent when he was running through a scene with Heidi Gardner.
“One of them, I was reading all of Heidi’s lines,” Bargatze told Meyers. “In my head, I thought the whole card was me.” The comic was surprised at how many lines he seemed to have.
“It’s not really making sense,” Bargatze recalled thinking, “but I’ll trust Saturday Night Live. Who am I to know?” For her part, Gardner let Bargatze run with it, thinking it was just a case of a host calling the shots.
Bargatze’s color-blindness didn’t seem to have an effect on his performance the last time around. His episode was one of the most acclaimed of Season 49 and produced “Washington’s Dream”—one of the most viral sketches in SNL history.
Bargatze made sure to give Feresten a heads-up about his color blindness this time around. He’s set to take the stage at 8H this weekend for the second episode of SNL’s 50th season.
