Michael Che has revealed one of his sketch ideas that he says was a little too edgy for Saturday Night Live.
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the Weekend Update anchor and SNL head writer revealed his rejected idea for a sketch about the Avengers accidentally killing an unarmed Black teenager.
“For obvious reasons, there’s no way that’s going on the show,” Che said. “Something that’s like racially specific, the audience is kind of looking at Saturday Night Live as Lorne Michaels’ show. They’re not looking at it as Black writers making a nuanced observation.”
An animated version of the sketch, titled “The Policemen,” was revived for Che’s new HBO Max series, That Damn Michael Che, which is free from the constraints of airing on a major network. The segment features a group of cops modeled after the X-Men facing off against Black Lives Matter protestors.
“On my show I can get away with it because [the audience] knows it’s me,” Che told Stern.
Another racially-charged sketch cut from SNL, said Che, centered on the first Black guy to boo baseball legend Jackie Robinson.
Despite some of his racially-driven humor being too provocative for the NBC show, Che acknowledged that SNL has changed for the better as the writers’ room becomes more diverse.
“When I first got here it was just Kenan [Thompson] and Jay [Pharoah] in the cast, but there was no Black writers,” he said. “If I were to write – or if a Black writer were to write – something that’s specific to Black humor, an all-white staff might not get the joke, so it’s deemed not funny, so it doesn’t go on the air.”
Che added, “[Sketches] that probably wouldn’t have gotten the benefit of the doubt then will get it now because there are more people in the room that appreciate it. That’s got to do with race, that’s got to do with gender, that’s got to do with youth. Having that diversity in the room makes the show more diverse.”
A recent sketch written by Che, titled “Gen Z Hospital,” sparked backlash earlier this month after some on social media accused it of cultural appropriation. The SNL star later took to Instagram and mocked the controversy.
