-Very exciting. Season 47 of "SNL."
Three new cast members. Ten new writers.
-A hundred. -A hundred new writers?
-A hundred new writers.
I think it's part of Biden's infrastructure plan?
-Oh, that's right. I saw that.
He's like, "We got to get more writers in there."
-And the nice thing, I think, is that luckily
we never win an Emmy for writing --
because the statues would bankrupt the Academy
if they ever had to give statues to the whole...
-If they ever gave out a 100.
-It would end the Academy, so that's nice.
-This is -- I was there when you started.
It's crazy to me now that --
I mean, I was only there four years before you started,
but you were a kid when you showed up.
And this is your I.D. you still use.
-This is my current I.D., yeah, that I have.
-Current I.D., and they -- Do they believe it's you?
-Yeah, 'cause it still scans.
Like, the security guards --
It scans, and that's what comes up.
And they look at me, and they're just like,
"Whatever. Just come in. At this point, just come in."
It's truly like if you had posted a photo
like you were kidnapped,
and there was a wanted photo out there, and then they were like,
"Let's just use it for his I.D. for his job for 20 years."
-"Hey, we found him. We rescued him from the kidnappers.
Let's use it as his I.D."
-"Let's let him never quite forget."
-People used to always ask me this question.
Were there summer stories you were bummed
not to be able to write sketches about or tell jokes about?
-Yes, there were some. There were stories.
There was the Cleveland Indians.
Did you see the -- They changed their name?
I don't know if you -- Do you -- Do you follow news stuff?
-Yeah, I do. [ Laughs ]
-The Cleveland Indians changed, and there was a whole --
What I like is there was a whole press conference
where the guy came out and he was like,
you know, "We're not the Cleveland Indians anymore.
We're gonna be the Cleveland Guardians instead."
And I thought it would have been really great if he'd come out
and been like, "We're going with Redskins."
[ Laughter ]
"We did some research, and we discovered
it actually recently became available.
And we'd like -- We're gonna do Redskins."
And I also really liked -- there was a story about --
that they caught a Catholic priest on Grindr.
Which I know you're like, "And...?"
But there was a whole outrage about this was happening,
and my thought was, "Isn't that the best-case scenario?"
Like, truly, isn't that what we've all kind of
wanted for years to happen? For centuries.
There's then this issue where repressed gay men
didn't know who they could open up to,
and now there's an app on their phone
that connects them to every single gay man around them.
-Right. -Like Professor X
putting on a helmet and being able to see
all the mutants in the world. -It's a Cerebro, right.
-I don't know that he was having sex with all of them.
But, you know -- -He definitely wasn't.
-Could be why he's in the wheelchair.
We don't know, but...
[ Laughter ]
I think that -- -He has Peyronie's?
[ Laughter ]
Professor X is for -- -He went...
Anyway, my point is, I feel like kids out there
should probably be pooling their lunch money together
to try to buy priests premium access to Grindr.
-All right. That's really --
-And that's my other commercial they're gonna...
-Hey, you were --
-You do edits and stuff, right? -No, no.
Whenever we have people from live TV shows, we do no edits.
-Oh, wow. That's great.
-You were on "Jeopardy!"
You weren't on "Jeopardy!" -No, I was not.
-But your -- Let's just take a look.
-That would almost make more sense, by the way,
if was the contestant, than this.
-Let's take a look. -Yeah.
-Recent Books for $800.
Kelly? -Who's Conan O'Brien?
-That's incorrect.
-[ Beeping ] -Looking for Colin Jost.
-All right. I think that's a real burn on Conan.
'Cause someone was like, "I want to punch him."
-He was locked and loaded with it,
like, "Punchable face? Conan. Go!"
-Now, is that something where somebody tells you about it?
Like, how do you find out it happened?
-Ye, I found out it happened because my mom sent me the clip,
and she said, "I would have gotten it."
[ Laughter ]
Thanks.
-She's like, "I don't get Cosmo,
but I would have gotten that."
-And, yes, it's a very --
'Cause when you make -- when you're a clue on "Jeopardy!",
you feel like you've made it.
-Yes. -But then in that same moment,
you realize, "Oh, I have not." -Well, I think it's interesting
to note how -- I mean, really what you want
is to be like a $100 first-round...
You were $800. You know what I mean?
There was some value to getting that right.
-Yeah, I guess you do have to work your way up --
-To the gimme.
You want to be in the Monday "New York Times" crossword.
-Yeah. -You know what I mean?
-Yeah, that's true. I'm barely Saturday right now.
-But let's -- Thank God it didn't happen again.
-Yeah. No. That would be --
-Let's try Harvard for $1,000.
-Alex?
-Writers and performers who have gone from "The Lampoon"
to "Saturday Night Live" include this young fellow,
who co-hosts "Weekend Update" with Michael Che.
-[ Beeping ] -And his name is Colin Jost.
[ Laughter ]
-First of all, they somehow found a photo
worse than the one on my I.D. -Yeah.
-Then, the other thing is,
Alex Trebeck went to Harvard to a location,
filmed a clue, like, "You're gonna like this one."
-Yeah. -Dead silence.
-We're gonna use a picture.
We're gonna talk about who he works with.
They really put that one on a...
-Every context that you could possibly give me.
-Nothing.
-And then you could tell when he had to reveal the name.
He just was like... "Why did I do this?"
-That's really also a double burn on Conan,
who also went to Harvard.
Nobody even guessed him on that one.
They only guessed him on the punchable face.
-We'd hit him, but I don't know if he could go to Harvard.
Yeah, so that's cool.
-You won an award. You won an Audie?
-Yeah. Were you going to say "outtie"?
-I think maybe -- -Did I just win an Audi?
[ Laughter ]
-I won an Audie, yes, which is very exciting.
I'm very conditioned to not win any award ever,
so it was very --
I was very flattered and very surprised.
For Best Audiobook, for my book, which was cool.
-Which is "Very Punchable Face."
And so you recorded your own book.
-Yes. -And you got an award.
That is a genuinely cool thing.
-It was so cool. I didn't even know you could.
It was very cool.
David Sedaris announced it, who was a hero of mine as a writer.
And -- When you go and you're recording an audiobook,
the other part of it is you're hearing --
You're reading out loud
what you already wrote and is locked in.
And then as you're reading it out loud, you're like,
"Oh, I would have made some changes.
This whole paragraph could have been a cut."
And I'll be like, "Can I, like, punch this up a little bit?"
And the guy's like "Sure. I don't care.
You can do whatever you want here."
-"I thought you were just reading it, man. Do whatever."
-"I'm not even checking that it's the same book."
-Congrats on that.
-I could go on to Stephen King's "It" for a while.
-Congrats on that. Congrats on another season of "SNL."
How many is this for you?
I guess we could do the math. 16, 17?
-Oh, God, dude. I don't know.
-"SNL" returns for its 47th season this Saturday.
-Which sounds like a joke. It really does. Season 47.
-47th season with 47 new writers.
This Saturday at 11:30 p.m. here on NBC with Owen Wilson
and musical guest Kacey Musgraves.