Entertainment

Youssef on SNL: ‘New York’s like — We’re liberal, but we’re also Italian.’

Comedian Ramy Youssef hosted SNL for the first time last night.

Ramy Youssef hosted “Saturday Night Live” this week. NBC

By Natalie Gale

4 minutes to read

Ramy Youssef covered a lot of ground in his monologue during last night’s “Saturday Night Live,” from the holy month of Ramadan, to the Biden campaign, to Gaza. 

He called out the subdued audience response to his hope for a trans woman as the next president of the United States. “That’s New York. New York’s like — We’re liberal, but we’re also Italian.”

The 33-year-old comedian, actor, and writer found fame in 2019 with the debut of his television series “Ramy” on Hulu, which tells the story of a millennial, first-generation American Muslim. He also recently had a leading role alongside Emma Stone in “Poor Things.”

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The week’s musical guest was Travis Scott, making his second SNL appearance — he performed a couple of songs off his 2023 album “Utopia.” The rapper and singer-songwriter, made his first SNL appearance in 2018 alongside host Awkwafina. 

Cold Open

It’s Easter, and three women named Mary are visiting Jesus’s tomb. The stone rolls away, and, lo and behold — it’s James Austin Johnson as Trump. “It’s Easter, the time of year when I compare myself to Jesus Christ — that’s just a thing I do now, and people seem OK with it, so I’m gonna keep doing it.” He’s selling Bibles (which is true), for “pandering” and “mostly for money.”

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He rambles about his Bible and pop culture, and he closes with the Lord’s Prayer, which he doesn’t exactly know.

Monologue

Ramy Youssef gives an eight-minute standup set as his monologue — he notes how holy this weekend is, with Easter, Ramadan, and the new Beyonce album all overlapping. He does political bits about how the South is just 45 minutes away from wherever you are, and the time he got a call from the Biden campaign. He closes with a prayer for Gaza — and his friend’s dog, Bojangles.

Couple Goals

Game show time! It’s Couple Goals, the game where married couples find out “just how well they know each other.” All of Youssef’s answers begin to revolve around how if his wife (Nwodim) dies in an accident, the police will think he did it because of how much he complains about her in texts to friends.

Please Don’t Destroy – We Got Too High

This week’s musical guest, Travis Scott, wants to take Youssef and the “Please Don’t Destroy” boys out for the night. But on the drive over, they accidentally get too high. “If I close my eyes, am I still, like, here?” one of the boys asks at the club, before accidentally using the women’s bathroom. Youssef is anxious for a different reason — he wore shorts.

Immigrant Dad Talk Show

Youssef, Marcello Hernandez, and Kenan Thompson host a show in their backyards called the “Immigrant Dad Talk Show,” where they talk about their children. “The good ones, and the sons as well!” They complain about their sons for working on their thesis, living in Brooklyn, and buying their dog gifts. But their daughters are perfect angels — one spent $1,200 in Sephora, and the other brought home five cats. They’re sponsored by “The Belt.” “Why have a conversation, when you can just hit ‘em with the belt?”

Ozempic for Ramadan

This one is exactly what it sounds like. Youssef stars in this pre-recorded Ozempic commercial, explaining how the drug makes it easier for him to fast during Ramadan. “As long as I shoot up before the sun rises, it’s halal.”

Travis Scott

Scott performed “My Eyes” and “FE!N,” two songs off of his most recent album, “Utopia,” which came out this past July. Playboi Carti joined him on stage for the latter.

Weekend Update

Colin Jost and Michael Che took on some of the week’s top stories during Weekend Update, like the Baltimore bridge collapse, Beyonce’s new country album, the chopping down of “Stumpy” the cherry blossom in D.C., and the upcoming solar eclipse.

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Beantown got a shoutout this week, too. “A soccer match between the U.S. and Mexico was briefly stopped because of homophobic chants from the crowd,” said Jost. “Meanwhile, homophobic chants are how you officially start games in Boston.”

They also brought on TikToker Piper Dunster (Chloe Fineman) to talk about Kate Middleton conspiracy theories, and Flaco the Owl’s widow (Sarah Sherman).

Tiny Desk Concert

The Jonah Hughes Band (Youssef, Chloe Trost, and Johnson) is performing a Tiny Desk concert at NPR, but the new 35-year-old intern (Bowen Yang) wants them to keep it down while he works on his new podcast about “AI and rural queers.” “What do we owe each other?” he asks no one. “And in a divided America, what is music?” He complains about the size of the desk in front of the concert, too. “That desk is not tiny, it never was. It just feels small ‘cause there’s so much crap on it.”

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