Michael Che brought Scarlett Johansson out during “Weekend Update” to jokingly apologize for his infamous roast beef joke during the final episode of Saturday Night Live‘s 50th season.
“Before I tell another joke, I wanna take this opportunity to apologize to someone I hurt, Scarlett, can you come out here?” Che said at the top of the bit, with a humorous tone, which took place during yet another joke-swap with his “Weekend Update” co-host and Johansson’s husband Colin Jost. “Y’know, last time we did joke-swap, I made Colin do some tasteless jokes comparing your vagina to Costco roast beef.”
The joke in question saw Johansson’s husband warn of Costco removing “the roast beef sandwich from its menu” during a “Weekend Update” segment last December. “But I ain’t trippin’, I’ve been eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid,” Jost said in a joke written by Che as Johansson looked on, shocked.
“The fact is I was just lashing out because I’m jealous. I’ve never even seen a human vagina,” he said, seemingly continuing to read lines penned by Jost. “And notice I said ‘human,’ because I once spent the summer on a farm.”
Before Johansson returned to host Saturday Night Live, she promised to “burn” Che “back” for the roast beef joke.
“I had all these cameras on me. I didn’t expect the setup to be like that,” she said in a profile with Vanity Fair. “I was like, ‘Wow, you really are seventh-, eighth-grade boys…’ I feel like it’s almost my responsibility to come up with some way to burn Michael back. Retaliation, I’d say, should be expected.”
During the episode, Che joked that he was also “sorry” to Jost “because I owe you everything,” another line seemingly written by his co-host.
“When Colin discovered me, I was selling crack outside ,” Che said in jest. “I’ve told thousands of jokes on ‘Update’ that have gotten dozen of laughs, but I’ve never said the three most important words of all: I love you.”
