Convention Comedy, ‘Update’-Style, Has Its Pitfalls and Pratfalls

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/saturday-night-live.html

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CLEVELAND — It was 10 minutes before the first live “Weekend Update” from the floor of a national political convention, and Michael Che and Colin Jost, the two anchors, had a problem: They couldn’t get into their studio.

Quicken Loans Arena was on Secret Service lockdown on Wednesday night as Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, was being escorted from the building. Cut off from printers and teleprompters, Mr. Jost and Mr. Che were rewriting zingers by hand as the midnight airtime loomed.

The duo arrived on the set with two minutes to spare. “Time for a quick bathroom break?” Mr. Jost joked, as a stylist speedily adjusted his hair.

Mr. Che turned to his fellow anchor with a last-second request: “I got a booger in my eye. Get it out?”

It has felt like a bit of a comedy crime that a presidential election of such wackiness is unfolding while the satirists at “Saturday Night Live” are on summer break. Turns out, the satirists agreed: Mr. Che and Mr. Jost put off their hiatus to fly to Cleveland.

Neither had been to a Republican National Convention before. “It looks like a Gary Busey look-alike contest,” quipped Mr. Che, who called the gathering “white Rio”; he taped a segment about searching the arena for minorities, comparing the hunt to Pokemon Go.

When Senator Ted Cruz was booed offstage about two hours before the “Update” broadcast, the writers scrambled to react. “People are booing the idea of listening to your conscience,” Mr. Jost said on air. “It’s like if Jiminy Cricket showed up and said, ‘Always let your conscience be your guide, and the crowd was like, Ah! Cricket! Kill it!’”

A packed room of NBC crew members, who next week will head to Philadelphia with the anchors for a planned reprise at the Democratic convention, served as the in-house laugh track.

Kate McKinnon, an “S.N.L.” favorite, appeared as a vindictive Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, before changing into a Skid Row T-shirt and hanging out while Chris Matthews, the MSNBC anchor, arrived for a follow-up segment with the hosts.

“Why is Chris Christie funny?” Mr. Matthews asked during the broadcast. “What is it about him? He’s fat?”

Mr. Che and Mr. Jost both cracked up. “He’s pure Jersey!” Mr. Jost explained.

Working on vacation, the hosts said in an interview afterward, was not a problem. “You might not see anything like this again,” Mr. Jost said.

Their 15-minute segment aired on MSNBC. Was that a step down from their usual NBC broadcast home?

“Nowadays, TV’s TV,” Mr. Che said. “It’s kind of like when Urkel was on ‘Step by Step’ that one episode.”

“Millennials will get that one,” Mr. Che added, starting to laugh.

“They love Urkel!” Mr. Jost chimed in. “They love ‘Step by Step’ more than anything.”