“Saturday Night Live” has launched a new short-form series titled “The Rundown” on Peacock and YouTube.
Each episode will feature “SNL” alums Dana Carvey, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, Bowen Yang and Questlove as early guests, selecting their favorite segments from the show’s history and adding them to Lorne Michaels’ famous “Rundown” board, building an all-star episode over time. In the first episode, Colin Jost solves a complex problem while writing a cold open, putting his favorite pieces on the board. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey’s “Katie Couric Interview with Sarah Palin.”
“It’s nostalgic because it’s from my early days as a writer,” Jost said of the sketch. “The combination of Seth[Myers]and Tina and Amy was just amazing. You can’t watch them play off each other. I think they’re two of the best ever.”
He said the cold open “holds up as one of the best in the show’s entire history.”
Jost joined “SNL” as a writer in 2005 and estimates he has probably written 100 cold opens. (These days, he stars in a number of productions as beer-drinking Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.)
“I almost can’t believe I was able to write so much,” Jost said. “I’ve blocked a lot of them, but there are some that I’m really proud of. Surprisingly, I’m not going to look at them again. That would ruin it.”
Jost also mentioned a sketch from the 2018 Brett Kavanaugh hearings starring Matt Damon as a Supreme Court justice. Jost said the cold open came together within 24 hours. He wrote it on a Friday night, convinced Damon to take an overnight flight from San Francisco to New York, and broadcast it live on Saturday night.
Episodes of “The Rundown” will air on Wednesdays during “SNL” hiatus weeks until mid-June. Watch the first episode below.
