Although February 29th’s episode of Saturday Night Live nearly went off without a hitch, there was one joke, in particular, that is not being received so well…
SNL’s Michael Che is now facing criticism for poking fun at the death of Steve Irwin .
“Saturday Night Live” comic, Michael Che, is in hot water for making a joke about Steve Irwin’s death.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Michael has made a joke in poor taste on SNL .
Back in October 2019, he was slammed for making a transphobic comment about Caitlyn Jenner.
He started things off by throwing jabs at Kanye West, since he had just released his new gospel album, “Jesus Is King” one day prior.
He joked that Kanye is slowly turning into an “old white lady.”
At which point he segued into a bit about Caitlyn Jenner — one that caused him major backlash .
Not only did he refer to Caitlyn as “Bruce”, but he also used the pronoun “he” and called her a “fella.”
Because of that, he faced accusations from all corners of the internet of being transphobic.
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“Rapper Kanye West released his new gospel album, ‘Jesus Is King’, yesterday,” Michael said at the time.
“At first I thought Kanye was losing his mind, and now I feel like he’s fine. He’s just turning into an old white lady,” he went on .
“It’s like, how long before this guy changes his name to Kathy?” (This is where things went awry).
“Now, you might think that I’m crazy, but about five years ago, there was a fella named Bruce Jenner, and he moved to Calabasas.”
While Michael managed to keep himself in the public’s good graces since then, it seems that he’s had another slip-up.
On last Saturday’s “Weekend Update” segment, he made a joke that referenced the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, and people are not taking kindly to it.
He began by talking about the coronavirus — a fairly popular topic of discussion these days.
“Man, I don’t wanna make jokes about this coronavirus,” he said . “And not because it’s too sad”.
“It’s because I don’t know that I don’t have it yet,” he explained.
“And if I do have it, the internet is going to play this clip of me making fun of it over and over again .”
“As they should, ’cause that’d be hilarious,” he added.
As you may have guessed, this is where things took a bit of a turn for the worst.
”Imagine if there was a video of the Crocodile Hunter making fun of stingrays,” he said.
If you didn’t know this already, Steve Irwin’s tragic and untimely death back in September 2006, was caused by being stabbed in the chest by a stingray.
“SNL” fans thought that Michael’s joke crossed a line.
It got pretty intense. I mean, people were literally threatening to fight him for making a Steve Irwin joke.
It will always be too soon for Steve Irwin Jokes, tbh.
Even if it had been enjoyed by the general public, it still would have been extremely insensitive to Steve’s family and fans.
Surely, the backlash was to be expected by “SNL” and Michael, considering all the jokes have to be approved before they’re aired.
It wasn’t the first time a comedian has offended people, and it won’t be the last.
What do you think of Michael Che’s joke about Steve Irwin from last Saturday’s episode of “Saturday Night Live”?
Let us know in the comments below!
