Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels appeared in a strange sketch this week… during which he beat up one of his cast members.
The sketch came about halfway through what ended up being a relatively lukewarm episode – hosted by Tiffany Haddish and with Guest performer Taylor Swift.
It was unlike something the late night show has done before – and seemed to be a play on a documentary about the drama that goes on behind the scenes.
Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels appeared in a strange sketch this week… during which he beat up one of his cast members
It was unlike something the late night show has done before – and seemed to be a play on a documentary about the drama that goes on behind the scenes
The premise is that one of the cast members, Beck Bennett, feels lost after his close friend and co-worker Kyle Mooney finds love in Leslie Jones.
He and Jones’ ex-lover, played by Colin Jost, meet in secret at the Rockefeller Place Ice Rink to make a plan to split the couple up so they can each get their partner back, and decide to do it at the masquerade ball.
‘It’s siple, you want your friend back, I want mine,’ Jost says to Bennett in the cover of darkness.
‘The masquerade ball is tomorrow night and it’s a chance for us both to get what we want.’
In a bizarre scene the two put on masks and wigs, Bennett attempting to pass for Jones and Jost attempting to pass for Mooney.
When they ‘unmask,’ things get ugly as Mooney runs over to keep Jost from kissing his girlfriend, pulling his fist back and clocking him square in the nose.
The bizarre scene took place at a masquerade ball when cast members ganged up and all started to beat up Colin Jost (pictured)
And what happens next is the most bizarre, as all of the cast members then take turns punching Jost in the face, eventually joined by producer Lorne Michaels, who takes the final few jabs.
He tells Jones to step aside because she has a big show the next day before truly unleashing on Jost, appearing to hit him square in the face.
At the end Jost is beaten to a pulp – and many viewers were left wondering what the point of the sketch was, and how it was meant to be funny.
Though Michaels has been working as a sort of puppet-master behind the scenes on SNL for the better part of 42 years – he has rarely made any appearances on the show himself, preferring instead to stay in the shadows.
In fact, some of the irony in the sketch stemmed from his ‘unmasking’ at the masquerade ball.
And adding to the peculiarity of the scene was that it starred Colin Jost, who is one of the Weekend Update anchors, but rarely appears in other sketches.
And what happens next is the most bizarre, as all of the cast members then take turns punching Jost in the face, eventually joined by producer Lorne Michaels, who takes the final few jabs
At the end Jost is beaten to a pulp – and many viewers were left wondering what the point of the sketch was, and how it was meant to be funny
Though Michaels has been working as a sort of puppet-master behind the scenes on SNL for the better part of 42 years – he has rarely made any appearances on the show himself, preferring instead to stay in the shadows. He is pictured left in October 2017, and right in 1976 when he first came to SNL
In the 1970’s when Michaels first came to the show he did appear in some sketches, and had a much more public role.
However, after John Lennon and Paul McCartney turned down his request to pay them $3,000 to appear on the show in 1976, he took on a much more behind-the-scenes role.
Michaels came under fire last month for failing to address the Harvey Weinstein scandal the week that it broke in the show.
Though it was brought up in two sketches the following week, many said it was hypocritical of Lorne to leave it out of the show as soon as it broke, particularly after how harshly he had his cast members slam Donald Trump over the p****gate scandal during the election.