As Saturday Night Live enters its 40th season, a new co-anchor joins the Weekend Update desk. Michael Che, a former correspondent on the Daily Show With Jon Stewart and a SNL writer, sits alongside co-host Colin Jost. A native New Yorker, Che can also be seen doing a man on the street series of videos where he talked to New Yorkers about what makes them #NYTough. “It’s always fun to talk to New Yorkers. I’m a New Yorker and we have a a lot of personalities in this city,” says Che about his #NYTough assignment. “Anytime you put a microphone and camera on people and ask them honest questions about living in the city, you never know what someone’s going to say.” The funny guy gave me the lowdown on his life.
“Since I was the youngest (of 7 children), I got all the hand me downs. It was a good thing that my brothers liked clothes a lot and I didn’t have to wear crazy things. So I couldn’t wait for hand me downs. Whenever my brothers would go shopping, I would think, ‘yeah, I’m going to look great in that in two years.’”
“I didn’t think I was going to be a performer until the first time I performed on stage. I was terrified. But I tried it just to try it. Before then, I thought that I would just write comedy. But when I performed, it was super thrilling. I was at an open mic at The Comedy Corner, a club in the Village in New York City that doesn’t exist anymore. I went there just to observe the comedians. Some were really good, some were really bad. After seeing the worst comedian I thought, “well, I can’t be THAT bad. If they’re brave enough to do it, I can do it too. It’s not going to hurt. That’s when I realized that it’s OK to be bad at comedy. Everyone starts somewhere. When I started I was really bad. Then you get better and better.”
“I can remember one of my jokes at that first open mic. It was in October, around Halloween. I had a joke about how Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate Halloween, which is weird because that’s the one time people answer the door for you. It was such a dumb joke. It was bad comedy, but fun to tell.”
“When I was a kid, the movie Stand by Me used to make me cry. I don’t know why, but it inspired the tears. And I loved the song too.”
“When you’re the youngest, you have to learn how to listen. If you want to hang around the older kids, you’ve got to be quiet, shut up, and listen. I think that’s probably where my comedy comes from – being able to observe things I didn’t quite understand and then talk about them later.”
“I remember the first time I saw Saturday Night Live. My sisters were laughing hysterically at Dana Carvey’s “Choppin’ Broccoli” sketch. It’s true. And If somebody would’ve told me then I’d be the host of Weekend Update when I was watching Choppin’ Broccoli, I probably would have asked for milk or apple juice, because I was about four at the time. I remember that I didn’t get the joke, but I knew it was funny, the way it sounded. I had never seen anybody laugh so hard like my sisters did. They loved it.”
“I was named after Che Guevara. My dad loved revolutionaries and guys like that so he was really into Che Guevara and named me Che.” (Che’s full name is Michael Che Campbell.)
“Hobbies? I can play the saxophone better than anyone on the planet. Actually, I’m lying. I can’t play the saxophone. There really aren’t other things I know how to do.”
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