Michael Che Names The 1 Colin Jost Joke That Was So Bad, It Made Him Want To Quit ‘SNL’

Almost a decade later, Michael Che is still a little heated over a joke Colin Jost wrote about salsa. 

Last week, the “Weekend Update” cohosts were interviewed by “Saturday Night Live” alums Dana Carvey and David Spade on their “Fly on the Wall” podcast.

About 10 minutes into the episode, Carvey asked if either Che or Jost had ever done or said anything during “Weekend Update” that made the other one say after it aired: “If you ever do that again, I’m going to kick [your] ass.” 

Che had a knee-jerk reaction and immediately recalled his least favorite Jost joke. 

“Yeah, I think ‘jalape?o business,’ I was pretty furious about that one,” Che said of a pun Jost made that was a play on the phrase “all up in your business.”

“You were just upset that it worked so well,” Jost said, defending his quip.

“I remember in run-through when you did it because I never heard it before,” Che recalled of the joke. “I don’t remember what the setup was, but the punchline was ‘jalape?o business.’ And I was like, ‘If you tell that joke on air, I’m leaving. I’m quitting the show.’”

“And he did it on air, and it destroyed,” Che admitted.

Jost said that he wasn’t even that attached to the joke, but Che’s hatred for it made him want to tell it live.

“I would have honestly cut it if it wasn’t so upsetting to you,” Jost told his coanchor. “And then I was like, ‘I’m definitely, definitely doing this.’” 

Neither Jost nor Che remembered the setup for the joke, but in case you are curious, according to multipleoutlets, it was this:

“Ohio police arrested a woman who allegedly stabbed her boyfriend for eating all of their salsa,” said Jost. “Though you’d be angry, too, if your boyfriend was jalape?o business.”

Although Jost made the joke back in 2015, Che didn’t quit the show. We’re not sure why not — but we’d like to think it’s because, despite one bad salsa joke, Che still values his friend-chip with Jost.