Michael Ché Addresses Saturday Night Live And NBC Censoring And Backlash

According to a report from Entertainment Tonight, just one week after Michael Ché from Saturday Night Live sparked controversy on social media for his jokes related to Caitlyn Jenner and Kanye West, the stand-up comedian addressed purported censorship at NBC.

During a recent episode of the sketch-comedy series, the stand-up comic addressed the controversial content of his comedy, in addition to telling more jokes about a woman who gave birth to a child at the age of 67.

Ché joked that the 67-year-old’s childbirth set a record for “Most Friction.” The comic stated that most people wouldn’t realize how long it took to write that joke, because it really took him approximately four hours to come up with it.

The star added that he initially had much better ones, but NBC execs said they were too much for national television. Ché stated he initially wanted to joke that he hoped the child liked “chalky milk,” but execs told him it was beyond what’s appropriate for television.

Another punchline he considered was that the woman could easily breastfeed the child simply by standing over the crib. Ché went on to joke that his punchlines weren’t that terrible, considering he could’ve said her giving birth at age 67 was a lot like pulling a “penny out of a wad of gum.”

On social media, a select group of people accused Ché of being both a misogynist as well as an ageist. As was noted above, this wouldn’t be the first time the comic has been embroiled in a controversy of some kind related to his comedic style.

Moreover, NBC has struggled with this issue several times in the last year. The network had to fire one recently hired comedian, Shane Gillis, on account of several jokes he told on a podcast. Shane was dropped from the cast and crew before the first episode of the season was even broadcasted.

Shane was taken to task by social media users and other media figures for joking about Chinese people among others. Moreover, he referred to presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, as a “Jew ch*nk.”