Did any of you notice comedian Michael Ché on this weekend’s at-home SNL? He was pretty drunk.
Of course he was drunk. He was holding a drink. What surprised me is how drunk he was. This dull haze was already coming over him, and he was almost speechless. I don’t know about the rest of you. But I have to get pretty far in my drinking binge for that to happen. It was obviously recorded. But maybe he should have gone to the emergency room. I don’t know.
Also, as long as we’re discussing Michael Ché, does anyone else think he’s hot? He’s got beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Has anyone else noticed this? Oh, well.
I thought both Che and Jost looked like they were tired of finishing the season but showing it in different ways. Jost wasn’t showing much emotion of any kind. Usually both of them come across as enjoying their time on Weekend Update. They actually managed to keep this season pretty much up to the level that the show has been at since the 1988-89 season, with about the same beginning date, ending date, number of episodes, and ratings. It looks to me like Lorne Michaels decided that the show would fulfil its contract with NBC this season no matter what changes would be necessary because of social distancing.
Never heard of the guy before so I have no baseline for how he ‘normally’ looks and sounds, but he seemed fine to me - I mean, he seemed to be saying all his prepared lines perfectly fine, he wasn’t slurring (or at least, I assume that was his normal accent), even the glass could have been part of the act (playing on the fact that sitting at home with a glass is all most of us can do right now). Honestly, if that is how being really drunk looks to you, come to a British pub when they next open.
Here is Oliver Reed in a short YouTube video showing how you really do ‘drunk on TV’ (and this wasn’t even live!): Oliver Reed drunk on Aspel - YouTube
He was maybe depressed, or tired, or stressed, or yeah, maybe even a little bit drunk. But he didn’t really sound drunk. Both he and Jost have played directly to the live audience, some of the other former Update anchors played more to the camera, whether it’s that or not they haven’t come off that well without an audience. Because of the circumstances the skits are all in the style of their short films and other non-live content, it’s hit or miss, but the good ones work out well. The news is kind of stuck in it’s format when the resources are so limited. So I can see Jost and Che just phoning it in when they’re phoning it in. And I can’t blame him if he feels like getting a little buzzed, I’d want to do the same thing.
I can believe that he was, actually, drunk; but I can also believe that he wasn’t really that far gone and that it was part of the act. In which case, it may be that, without a live audience and fellow performers to play off of, he somewhat misjudged how far to play it.
I did notice that both Che and Jost seemed rather low-energy in this segment, likely for reasons mentioned already. They did seem to give it more of a go in the previous at-home episodes. Hard to blame them for felling a little burned out at this point.
Was Che drunk? I don’t know. Maybe he was a bit buzzed; maybe it was part of the act. If he was drinking, that’s hardly a cardinal sin in show business. I’ve known some comedians who won’t take the stage without two or three drinks in them. Others prefer to have their wits about them and won’t touch a drop of alcohol until after the show. I have no idea which category Che is in. But he was absolutely not impaired enough to need medical attention, let alone an ER.
Shodan, watch some typical Weekend Updates on YouTube. The following is a random one. Che and Jost have different styles, but they’re both pretty good. They were both a little flat this past weekend but in different ways:
The Weekend Update that I linked above is where Che first started with the “Ah, screw it—might as well drink on air” shtick. See the part starting at about 1:58.
Che drinking during Weekend Update is kind of a running joke about COVID-19. I was goingn to post a link to the same bit that Thudlow Boink did above, in which Che started the joke.
So I wasn’t assuming that Che was drunk. I’m still not.
There were a lot of skits that had alcohol in them; one had a box of Franzia that had been papered over and had “White Girl Merlot” written on it. One had a cast member drinking in a tool shed.
Maybe the rest of the cast were/are trying to razz him about his drinking?
There were references to drinking in SNL sketches that had nothing to do with Che. For instance, there were those mocking Kathie Lee Gifford’s drinking on Today. Sketches about drinking have been around on SNL since long before Che got there.
Shodan, watch some typical Weekend Updates on YouTube. The following is a random one. Che and Jost have different styles, but they’re both pretty good. They were both a little flat this past weekend but in different ways:
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Thanks. Yes, they were a bit lower-energy than they were in this clip, but roughly as funny. Unfortunately.
Comedians whose shtik was mostly about their being drunks have been around for a long time. The link below gives a bunch of examples. Some of these comedians only made jokes about being drunk in a few of their routines. I certainly don’t think of Amy Schumer as being a drunk comedian for example. There were even drunk comedians who hardly ever drank. This drunk shtik is less common than it used to be among comedians since being drunk is not as well accepted anymore. I don’t understand what you mean about Lorne Michaels and Chardonnay:
I’m thinking that trying to make the current dangerous shitstorm funny week after week, trying to parody that which is already a fucked-up parody, can be a bit tiring mentally and emotionally.
