Weekend Update

Weekend Update is a Saturday Night Live sketch and satirical news program that comments on and parodies current events.

In modern times, dedicated anchors are chosen among writing staff, often lead writers, in lieu of cast or featured players.

[1] Weekend Update was created by original anchor Chevy Chase and SNL writers Herb Sargent and Al Franken.

In addition, Garrett Morris parodied the practice of a picture insert of a person delivering the news in sign language for the hearing impaired.

A frequent feature of Weekend Update during this time was "Point/Counterpoint", a send-up of the then-current 60 Minutes segment of the same name with James J. Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander.

[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Other popular guests during Curtin's tenure as anchor included John Belushi and Gilda Radner's characters Emily Litella and Roseanne Roseannadanna.

For that episode, Weekend Update received a one-time name and set change to "Saturday Night NewsLine"[11] and featured three segments:[12] science edition, hosted by Dr. Jonathan Lear (Mark King), arts and leisure correspondent Bill Murray, and news by Rocket.

Al Franken, whose history with SNL dated back to 1975, had been lobbying to replace Nealon as Weekend Update host.

One of the most frequent guest correspondents during Macdonald's run was Joe Blow (played by Colin Quinn), a blue-collar guy who would rant about things that bother him.

Macdonald made his final appearance as Weekend Update anchor in December 1997, after NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer—a longtime friend of Simpson, who had previously told Michaels to not let his friendship affect the show—demanded Macdonald's dismissal from the segment, despite Michaels's protest that making the change in the middle of the season would be difficult for the show.

His first edition of Weekend Update began with "Have you ever gone to a bar and found that your favorite bartender was replaced with a guy named Steve?"

For the first half of the 1998–1999 season, Quinn would do a pre-desk monologue, where he would provide commentary and rant about the week's biggest news stories.

Among the candidates were stand-up comics Kevin Brennan and Jeffrey Ross plus two duos: Ana Gasteyer with Chris Parnell, and Jimmy Fallon with writer Tina Fey.

Recurring features of the Fallon/Fey era included the "Update Door," a door on the left of the set where celebrities, as impersonated by SNL cast members (and at one time the Land Shark) would walk through to do a commentary—a segment called "Terrible ReEnactments", in which Chris Kattan would do an intentionally bad re-enactment of a news story that had occurred during the week (usually the story involved a celebrity being injured); and regular appearances from Jeff Richards's Drunk Girl character.

Fallon left to pursue a film career in 2004, and was replaced by fellow cast member Amy Poehler as co-anchor, giving the sketch its first two-woman anchor team.

The segment is featured in the 2006 film Man of the Year in which Robin Williams appears on Weekend Update alongside Poehler and Fey.

with Seth") remained, featuring various hosts and guests including Tracy Morgan and Jerry Seinfeld in March 2009 and Kermit the Frog in November 2011.

Moynihan displays a certain attraction to Meyers, who makes fun of the general attitude of the cast members of Jersey Shore as well as Snooki's own personal attributes.

Entertainment Weekly confirmed that Amy Poehler would appear on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday for at least two broadcasts as co-anchor in fall 2009.

On February 1, 2014, Meyers performed his final episode of SNL and was joined at the Weekend Update desk by Strong, Poehler, Hader in character as Stefon, Andy Samberg, and Armisen as Governor Paterson.

SNL writer Colin Jost replaced Meyers as co-anchor of Weekend Update beginning with the March 1 episode, which was hosted by Jim Parsons.

Comedian and SNL writer Michael Che replaced Cecily Strong beginning with the season 40 premiere, hosted by Chris Pratt.

So far, this era features many appearances from cast members playing some version of themselves, most notably Pete Davidson and Leslie Jones.

Longtime cast member Kenan Thompson has also developed several new characters and impressions, including Willie, Michael Che's fictional neighbor.

With Cecily Strong no longer anchoring Weekend Update, she reprised characters like The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation with at a Party and Cathy Anne, a woman with a southern accent who hits on Michael Che.

This time, Meyers, Jost, and Che talk and joke about rapper Kanye West (a Trump supporter) visiting the White House.

[27][28] In 2024, Johansson was present in Studio 8H during the segment and reacted to Jost deliver jokes centered around the recent birth of their child.

[30] Tina Fey made a surprise guest appearance to fill in for Jost; due to the reduced staff, the segment was performed on chairs placed on the main stage rather than its usual newsroom set.

In the mid-1990s, former Weekend Update host Norm Macdonald was fired from SNL for tackling taboo topics including the highly controversial 1994 murder trial of O.J.

She made a joke about Lupita Nyong’o, most well-known for her role as Nakia in Black Panther, being named People magazine’s most beautiful person, saying that during the slave days she herself would’ve been the most sought after, making comments about how she would have been paired with the best guy on that plantation and would have been the number one pick in the “slave draft.” On Twitter she responded in defending her joke and how she was sad she has to defend herself to the black community.