"Saturday Night Live" mega-producer Lorne Michaels has just announced (see below) that Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" correspondent, writer and stand-up comedian Michael Che, who's (already, IMHO) easily one of the most talented, up-and-coming comics/satirists on the small screen these days, has been named as co-host of SNL's flagship segment, "Weekend Update," for the coming TV season.
Buzzfeed's noting tonight that Che, who's been writing for the NBC show over the past year, will be the first African-American anchor of the "Weekend Update" segment in the show's 39-plus-year history. (I'm not sure if fact-checking will support Buzzfeed's statement, however. In any event, welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Michaels!)
I started watching SNL back when it launched, in 1975, and considered myself to be an avid fan of the show for the first eight or ten years it was on-air. But, like many others, my interest waned and I've rarely caught an episode, ever since.
I think Che's going to have a huge career...
'The Daily Show's' Michael Che Can't Find A Safe Place
To Report On Ferguson
Michael Che on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," August 26th, 2014
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HERE'S A LINK to Michael Che doing stand-up on
"Late Night with Seth Meyers," from earlier in the year.
ANOTHER LINK to Che doing stand-up at a club
in Liverpool, England, last year.
Checkout this clip, linked a couple of lines below, from "The Daily Show" last week, on the Minuteman Project. Che's phenomenal!
TPM Livewire: "'The Daily Show' Takes A Crack At Border Militia's
'Operation Normandy'"
(h/t to Kossack Southcoast Luna in the comments)
New Comic to Anchor ‘Update’ on ‘S.N.L.’
By BILL CARTER
NEW YORK TIMES
SEPT. 12, 2014
The new season of “Saturday Night Live” will have a significant change in its cast and its most prominent segment, “Weekend Update.”
Michael Che, a comic perhaps best known for his role as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” will replace Cecily Strong, who will remain on “S.N.L.” as a regular cast member.
After trying out what he said were “a number of different combinations” in the last few weeks, Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator and executive producer, said he had selected Mr. Che, 31, who worked on the show last season as a writer, to be the partner of Colin Jost, who began co-anchoring “Weekend Update” in the middle of last season.
Mr. Michaels said that Mr. Che, who has had a career as a stand-up comedian in New York, formed a close relationship last year in the writers’ room with Mr. Jost, one of the show’s two head writers.
“Michael is a strong writer, and he’s really funny,” Mr. Michaels said. “It’s always difficult to make changes and make ‘Update’ different from what’s gone before…”
Also see:
“SNL” Has Its First Black “Weekend Update” Anchor,
Buzzfeed, Logan Rhoades, Sept. 11th, 2014 (8:30 p.m.)
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