Seth Meyers held another “Surprise Inspection” for his writers on Tuesday night but, after the audience actually responded positively to a few of the jokes, the NBC host shamed them, and joked that “this is now an inspection of you.”
For those unfamiliar, Meyers hosts multiple “Surprise Inspections” throughout the year. As he explains ahead of each one, his writers pitch him hundreds of jokes per day and, well, “a lot of those jokes are not good.” So, during a “Surprise Inspection” segment, Meyers reads some of the jokes he rejected, and makes sure to call out the writer responsible. On Tuesday, one punchline in particular drew a genuinely good reaction.
“Rapper Nicki Minaj visited the White House yesterday and popped into an Oval Office meeting, making Trump only the second president to host a ménage in the Oval Office,” Meyers begrudgingly read.
At the punchline, an image of Bill Clinton appeared onscreen, and the audience erupted into laughter and applause. The joke was the handiwork of writer Matt Goldich.
“You know what, your pleasant reaction to that? This is now an inspection of you,” Meyers retorted. “You’re not doing great. Minaj in the Oval Office! I mean, we were — my head writer, Alex Baze, and I sat there, we almost had an aneurysm reading that joke! And it turns out, we’re wrong! You guys lost your minds.”
For the rest of the segment, Goldich’s jokes got a bit more love from the audience, seemingly just to mess with Meyers. By the end, when a joke about “Heated Rivalry” came around and got immediate laughs after he revealed who wrote it, the late night host simply hung his head in his hands.
“I don’t even know who you guys are anymore,” he mourned.
You can watch the entire “Surprise Inspection” in the video above.
