Colin Jost reveals his pick for the best cold open in “Saturday Night Live” history
Colin Jost reveals his pick for the best cold open in “Saturday Night Live” history
Ryan ColemanThu, March 19, 2026 at 4:14 AM UTC
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Colin Jost during Weekend Update on the Oct. 4, 2025, 'SNL' episodeCredit: Will Heath/NBCKey Points -
Colin Jost looks back at 51 seasons of Saturday Night Live to pick his favorite cold open of all time.
On the inaugural episode of SNL's new short-form series The Rundown, the "Weekend Update" anchor chose 2008's sketch pitting Tina Fey's Sarah Palin against Amy Poehler's Diane Sawyer.
"It's nostalgic for me, because it was early on for me as a writer," Jost explained. "It was just a great combination of [Seth Meyers] and Tina and Amy together — you got to see them playing off each other. I think they're two of the best to ever do it."
How do you boil 51 years of Saturday Night Live history down to a single sketch? Colin Jost managed, but it wasn't easy.
Jost has been with SNL a whopping 12 years, moving from writer to writing supervisor to co-head writer, before teaming up with Michael Che to anchor the comedic news program "Weekend Update."
He marshaled that experience as the inaugural guest on SNL's new short-form series The Rundown, which prompted him to sift through 51 years of cold opens — a good many of which he helped write — to make his pick for the very best. He ultimately landed on an "iconic" sketch featuring two of his predecessors at "Weekend Update."
"If I'm making a rundown and I'm picking a cold open, the Katie Couric–Sarah Palin interview, I think, I would put in here," Jost declared.
He's talking about the now-classic spoof of the infamous interview between Sawyer, a veteran broadcast journalist and Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential hopeful in the 2008 presidential election. Amy Poehler stepped in for Couric, while her "Weekend Update" buddy Tina Fey struck generational comedy cold with her lacerating portrayal of Palin.
The no-frills sketch featuring a single, dexterously-crafted conversation between Couric and Palin opened the season 34's third episode in 2008, which was hosted by Anna Faris.
"It's nostalgic for me, because it was early on for me as a writer," Jost explained. "[Seth Meyers] wrote it. I'm sure Tina and Amy also helped on it. It was just a great combination of Seth and Tina and Amy together — you got to see them playing off each other. I think they're two of the best to ever do it. There were so many iconic things that came out of it. So to me, that's my pick, based on both nostalgia, and I think it holds up in the whole history of the show as one of the best."
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Fey's run as Palin in various sketches throughout the long 2008 presidential campaign cemented her status as one of SNL's all-time greatest. The season 34-opener "Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton Address the Nation," which cast Poehler as the former Secretary of State, ranked on two different Entertainment Weekly lists of best-ever SNL sketches.
But Jost also looked beyond his perspective as a member of team SNL to pick runner-ups.
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"As a viewer, I remember also loving 'Not Going to Phone It in Tonight,' that Steve Martin song," Jost shared, pointing to the cold open from the season 17, episode 9 in 1991.
Then there's "Wolverines," the very first cold open from 1975's series premiere which features Michael O’Donoghue giving John Belushi an absurd English lesson.
"I always wished we could go back to that more," Jost explained. "I always wished we could have some cold opens that were just short and one idea and a funny performance."
SNL is in the midst of its 51st season, but is taking time off this weekend to focus on this Saturday's premiere of the series' new U.K. spinoff. Fey will host the first episode.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
