For SNL’s Michael Che, Comedy Is A Sport, and He’s Swinging For The Fences

After working on it all year, he taped the special in late August, over four performances at the Minneapolis comedy club First Avenue. He opted for Minneapolis because “the vibe, the venue, it just felt different,” he says. “It felt unique. It felt on time.” For those wondering what vibe the comedian, who is no stranger to stirring up controversy, is offering up this time, look no further than the special’s subtitle. “Shot in Minnesota” contains a deeper meaning when considering the death of George Floyd or ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year, setting the stage for a performer who is unafraid to get a little political.

In this way, Che’s material feels right on time too. Within the first 10 minutes of the special, Che makes provocative punchlines about a myriad of hot topics, including but not limited to Charlie and Erika Kirk, MAGA hats, and the resurgence of the R-word as it pertains to Donald Trump. “Y’all don’t know this, but I own like three daycares here,” Che quips during the special, joking about the childcare fraud scandal that swept the state last year. His laid-back vibe and relaxed aesthetic—meandering around the stage in a hoodie, seemingly coming up with his material on the spot—can belie the sharpness of his cultural criticism and how overtly political he gets without feeling like he’s picking a side. And I can’t help but bring up a very different habit from his stand-up comedy: saying the N-word. “You can’t say that shit on Weekend Update,” he says, chuckling. “It’s on channel four, man.”

“I try to stay in the world of figuring it out in real time,” Che tells me. “As opposed to having a strong stance, I like to explain why I’m confused. I think that sort of disarms people. There’s nothing to disagree with: I’m trying to figure it out. And then even if you disagree with me, you know I’m not lying. It’s coming from an honest place, and I’m showing you how I got there.” For Che, wrestling with all sides of seemingly intractable issues—from figuring out how to solve the gun violence epidemic in our country—is what generates the comedy. “It’s a way of being inclusive without also pandering,” he adds.

Che’s stand-up demeanor—ultra chill and incredibly casual—is a far cry from the more buttoned-up comedian who sits behind the “Weekend Update” desk most Saturdays and has very little time to land a punchline. He’s painfully aware of this. When I ask whether he treats stand-up like he treats “Weekend Update,” he lets out a loud laugh. “Hell no, man. Does it look like it? [They are] very, very, very different jobs,” he says.

Che has a habit of gauging the audience’s reaction to “Weekend Update” in real time, often laughing when a joke flops. “People be like, ‘Why are you laughing at your joke?’ he says. And I’m like, I’m not laughing at my joke, I’m laughing at them. Comedy’s funny both ways. There’s a show for you happening, and there’s a show for me happening.” Untethered from the “Weekend Update” desk, Che can let loose in a way that feels more authentic to his natural sense of humor, showcasing a side we typically only get to glimpse.

It was a long road for Che to get to his third Netflix special. The New York native and LaGuardia grad still remembers his days pounding the pavement on the open-mic circuit.

“There used to be a list online called badslava.com. I don’t even know if it still exists, and it listed every open mic in New York City, literally,” he says. Aspiring comedians, you’re in luck: it still exists. Testing out his material at venues like the Comedy Corner and The People’s Improv Theater, Che says he “met a lot of really, really great friends and really, really funny comedians that way.” Still, it was a grind. “I’d do about four to five open mics a day,” he says.

Che was still on the open-mic grind when he was hired at Saturday Night Live as a guest writer in 2013 for season 39. He was hired at a “weird time” in the history of the long-running sketch comedy show. “Coming here, it was tough because I was the only Black writer here,” says Che. “It wasn't like a rule, you know what I mean?” he says. “It wasn't like a bad thing. That's just how it worked out.”

The lack of melanin on staff wasn’t necessarily easy to navigate. “It was tricky,” he says. It’s a word he uses multiple times to describe his start at SNL. “SNL is such a machine. You just kind of get in where you fit in, you know what I mean?” he says. “It’s going to happen no matter what.”

Black SNL cast members like Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah helped him settle in and find his groove, which led to Che becoming the first Black “Weekend Update” co-anchor in 2014. Twelve years later, Che has been around long enough to see things change. “Then Leslie [Jones] came, and then Sasheer [Zamata] came, and then [former SNL writer] Sam Jay came,” Che says. “I'm forgetting people, but at one point it was like five or six Black people in the cast. I was a part of that.” (Today, along with Che there are 3 other Black cast members: Thompson, Patterson, and newcomer Saidah-Belo-Osagie). While he’s feeling nostalgic for a bygone SNL, Che is also excited to see the next generation of Black talent being developed at Studio 8H. “Now I'm watching Kam [Patterson] from a completely different world. It's kind of dope.”

Soon, he’ll have the chance to work with SNL’s content creator host, Druski, who’s set to host the show on November 7th. Billed as SNL’s first digital creator host (though Issa Rae and Quinta Brunson may beg to differ), Druski is in many ways cut from a similar cloth as Che—Black male comedians unafraid to stir the pot and make a bit of controversy in the process. (For the uninitiated, check out Druski’s Erika Kirk-inspired viral comedy video for the content creator’s provocative sense of humor). Had Druski popped a few years earlier, it’s easy to imagine him appearing on Che’s HBO Max sketch show That Damn Che, which lasted for two seasons.

Just don’t expect to see Che in a sketch with Druski come November 7th. “I don't want to do sketches,” he says. “That's a tough gig. I like it. I like writing it even, but I don't want to do it.” He shouts out his Weekend Update co-anchor. “Colin does a lot of sketches. I think he gets a kick out of it.”

More than a decade into his tenure on the sketch series, if SNL makes him feel anything, it’s old. Che is 43 years old, making him one of SNL’s one of the oldest cast members along with 44-year-old Jost, 46-year-old Mikey Day, and 48-year-old Kenan Thompson. “It's for young people, I think.” Che says of the show. “Man, I try to stay out their way because it's their show. If I got something to add, they're welcome to have it, but I try to let them do what they do and talk to their generation because that's what the show is for. I'm just trying to keep quiet and keep my nose clean before they realize that I'm too old.”

That being said, Che’s got some notes for the Zoomers and Gen Alphas out there. “This is the headphones generation. They're not really social anymore,” he laments. “It's funny, I go to bars and I'll be the oldest guy there at times, which is sad. It's all a bunch of young 20 something and all the music is from when I was 25. They're playing the Ying Yang Twins... What do you like? It's like they don't even have their version of a party. They're still doing what we did.”

Aging has caused him to reevaluate other aspects of his life—specifically his personal life. In Shot in Minnesota, Che goes on a long tear about his dating life, joking that it’s hard to find someone to go on double dates with Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson. While Jost hasn’t seen Shot in Minnesota yet, he gave Jost a heads up that he and his wife appear prominently in the special. “He was like, "I don't care," Che says of Jost. “He's far more supportive of me than I am of him.” When I ask if there’s any romance in his life he reflexively jokes, “This going in the newspaper?” He’s never publicly dated anyone, although if you’re a woman in the greater New York area, you may have come across his Raya profile. But when his laughter fades, Che gets real for a moment. “No, I don't know. I tried, man. I tried,” he says, of dating. “I'm trying to settle down a lot more. But I think I'm more married to the stage.”

The stage certainly has been good to him. “[Saturday Night Live’s] been better to me than I've been to it,” he says. “It's one of the last appointment viewings on television that's not sports or not The Masked Singer… It's like being on the Knicks. It's like being a Yankee. When we get it right, it's special. When we don't, people are very upset and they're calling for your jobs. It's good to just be a part of something that people really care about.”