Colin Jost and Michael Che closed Saturday Night Live’s December 21, 2024, Christmas episode with their annual Weekend Update joke swap. Che’s jokes for Jost made Jost’s wife, Scarlett Johansson, a central target—and she watched from backstage as he delivered them. “Most brutal yet” is a fair reaction to the personal material, but it is a subjective verdict, not an objectively established ranking of every swap.
What happened in the 2024 joke swap?
The segment capped the December 21, 2024, SNL Christmas episode. In the format described by Saturday Night Live’s official clip, Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che make each other read jokes they have not seen before, live on air. The official description says the swap closed out 2024.
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Jost read jokes Che had written for him, including material about Johansson. She watched from backstage while the camera captured her reactions, according to contemporaneous reports from Us Weekly and Fox News.
What did Che make Jost say about Scarlett Johansson?
The material took aim at Johansson’s recent 40th birthday and the couple’s child, making the swap notably personal. Fox News also reported that Jost first read jokes Che had written about race before the segment moved to the Johansson material. The sequence combined topical provocation with jokes about Jost’s family; the available coverage does not establish a measured scale for how harsh this was compared with earlier years.
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Johansson was present backstage and watched while Jost read Che’s jokes about her. Her presence gave the audience a visible reaction to material aimed at her, rather than leaving the jokes as an exchange between the two anchors. Fox News reported Johansson’s own assessment of the tradition: “It is brutal. I feel like every year it gets worse. It’s just terrible.” That is her description of the experience, not an objective ranking of the swaps.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Was this the most brutal SNL joke swap?
The personal focus on Jost’s wife and child supports calling the 2024 edition especially pointed. But “most brutal yet” is a judgment, and the contemporaneous accounts do not compare every past swap against consistent criteria. A defensible comparison would need to look across editions at factors such as how personal the targets were, who was present, the anchors’ reactions, and the role of topical news. On the evidence available here, the firm conclusion is that this swap put family material—including Johansson—at its center.
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