-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy-nominated co-head writer
of "Saturday Night Live."
All episodes of his new show, "That Damn Michael Che,"
are available to stream this Thursday on HBO Max.
Let's take a look.
-I just want to say I'm sorry.
-Oh, it's cool. I could barely smell it.
-W-- Oh, no, not that.
I mean I'm sorry for everything going on in the country.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
With the police shootings and all the injustices
and for white privilege.
-This thing even move yet?
-Please welcome back to the show one of our favorites,
Michael Che.
♪♪
-Hi.
-Isn't this something?
Isn't this great?
-This is good. This is good. Oh!
-Welcome, buddy. -How are you?
-I mean, you've done a couple of these with no audiences.
-Yes, I have. -How is it --
I know it's not full at "SNL,"
but it really does feel full at home watching.
-It feels amazing now.
Like, it feels really, really great.
Like, I don't know how many people's in there,
but you start to forget what it was like when it was packed.
-Right. You just needed to set a new baseline, and now --
-Yeah, and it's also kind of cool
because you can hear, like, you know, specific things,
like, "That wasn't funny."
-[ Laughs ] Yeah, it's nice.
Sometimes when it gets too full,
you can't hear, like, specific in-the-moment notes.
-I remember me and Jost did Mania,
and it was in MetLife Stadium.
And it was like 80,000, 90,000 people,
this big wrestling event.
And we went out, and you just hear the roar of boos,
which we're used to.
But then if you made eye contact with somebody,
you can hear specifically what they were saying about you,
what they hated about you, and that was a lot more intense.
-The best one that ever happened to me
was when I was doing "Update."
My parents were in the audience.
And I told one joke that bombed with everyone,
except my mom laughed really loud.
And I got -- My brother wrote me an e-mail the next day
that said, "Well, Mom liked it."
-[ Laughs ] That's great.
We did one I think like two weeks ago.
I don't even -- if it was my joke or if it was Colin's joke.
But one lady just said, "No."
Like, no? What do you mean, no? That's not an option.
-I've talked to some people who --
It was more before it got too cold to do it,
people that were doing outdoor shows, maybe like September.
And they were saying, one,
they had to remember how to be a stand-up again,
but they also felt like the audience
had to remember how to be audiences again.
-Yeah, I mean, stand-up's a lot harder than being an audience.
I think it's probably harder for them
because you're not being very funny onstage, you know.
'Cause stand-up is a lot about just remembering
and timing and all of that.
And when you don't have that,
it does look like a guy just talking,
which is something nobody really wants.
-Right, everybody wants to do but nobody wants to watch.
-Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
-Yeah, people are like, "Oh, my God, I'd love a microphone
and be allowed to talk for an hour."
It has been -- You have three shows left.
-Yes. -A weird season.
-An incredible accomplishment that you guys got --
you're gonna get through it, knock on wood.
-I mean, we've had some really, really cool guests.
We had Chappelle. We had Burr.
We had Daniel Kaluuya. We had Issa Rae.
We had Regina King.
Like, we had an amazing season of guests, I think.
-And now Elon Musk is gonna be on.
-Yeah, you know, that's gonna be exciting, too.
He's the richest man in the world.
How could you not be excited for that?
-Do you have any interest --
You know, I will say, talking about stand-ups,
'cause I think that...
Obama very much had a stand-up cadence, I thought.
And then I think that Trump sort of had stand-up material.
He was, like, working on an act.
-That's the best way I've ever heard it put.
Obama has the cadence, and Trump has the material.
-He's just been working at --
And one of the funniest
where I was genuinely like, "Oh, that's a good stand-up bit,"
is he used to talk about how all rich people want to go to space.
And I was like, "Oh, that's a pretty good premise
for a stand-up bit."
-It's really good. It's very rich.
Can we laugh at him now?
-Who, Trump?
-Yeah, can we laugh with him?
-Oh, can we laugh with him?
-Different question.
-When are we allowed to laugh with him again?
-When are we allowed to laugh with Trump
and say, "You know what? That one was really funny."
-Do you have any interest in going to space?
-I mean, not first.
[ Laughter ]
Not first.
I didn't want to be first to get the vaccine, man.
We're very paranoid people.
-Yeah. Well, I mean, I think -- Yeah.
If Elon said, though, if he was going and he invited you to go.
-He'd have to FaceTime me from there.
-Okay. Gotcha.
-And I'd have to be certain that he was actually there.
I don't know if you're a history buff,
but we've been tricked before.
-[ Laughs ]
A very funny clip with you and Cecily.
I've only watched the first episode,
which I was telling you backstage I think is great.
It will come to no surprise
to anyone who knows the way you write
and the way you do stand-up, this show is not entirely,
but a good deal about race. -Yes.
-And the thing I cannot fathom,
and I've talked to you about this, as well,
is that you basically wrote and did this show
while you were doing "SNL," which just seems overwhelming.
-It was a very bad idea, as they say in the business.
It was exhausting, man.
This was, like, a really, really exhausting year
of doing this show.
We not only wrote it, but we also shot it during "SNL."
So, like, on off weeks, we would just be doing that.
So this is kind of like --
This next break that we have for the season
will be, like, kind of my first actual break from anything.
And then I'll just be doing stand-up.
-Are you glad that they're all coming out at once?
Because it must be strange to write sketches at "SNL,"
which you never have to wait
more than basically five days until you see it.
I mean, at first, initially I wasn't.
Initially I wanted to roll out like "SNL"
because then you could always improve it.
But now I'm like, "Oh, yeah,
it'd be either one week of great press
or one week of terrible press, and then it's over,"
and I kind of like that they're all kind of coming out.
You can watch it at your own leisure.
-I want to -- have a lot more questions for you
but particularly about the title.
We'll be right back with more from Michael Che.