Colin Jost Reflects on His ‘Humiliating’ Experience Competing on ‘The Weakest Link’
Colin Jost might not be the weakest link on “Saturday Night Live,” yet his performance on a game show years ago could tell a different story.
During the January 20 episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Jost reminisced about an embarrassing incident from his time as a contestant on a college episode of “The Weakest Link.”
“I was really anxious. It was my first time in Los Angeles. I’d never appeared on any show before, and there I was. I wouldn’t say I excelled on the show,” he confessed.
Shortly after, a nostalgic clip of him on the show began to play. Dressed in a Harvard sweatshirt and sporting a different hairstyle than today, Jost was asked what season it is in the Northern Hemisphere in August. He mistakenly answered fall when the correct answer was summer.
After the clip aired, the audience on “The Tonight Show” erupted in laughter, while Jost buried his face in his left hand.
“What season is August, and I said fall!” he said, poking fun at himself.
“By the way, I thought about it, then said ‘fall.’ It’s even more humiliating with a Harvard sweatshirt on,” he continued, prompting more laughter from the audience.
Jost mentioned that he got on the show after receiving an unexpected phone call where the caller asked if he wanted to be on a game show.
“I thought, ‘Sure!’” he recalled. “I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a scam. They gave me a trivia quiz over the phone and informed me that they’d fly me to L.A.”
Now the host of “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” on Prime Video, Jost also shared how he was constantly reminded of his poor performance on the show due to a voiceover in every round.
“Each round, it was announced, ‘Statistically, the weakest link this round was Colin.’ This happened every single round. I managed to stick around until the end and then I dominated in the final round,” he said.
However, despite his fortunate finish, his less-than-stellar gameplay didn’t exactly earn him a lot.
“I performed so poorly that there was hardly any money to win,” he remarked, explaining that he ended up taking home about $5,000, which he used to buy beer and wine while staying in the hotel with the other contestants.
Making mistakes on seemingly simple questions seems to be a trend for Jost. Last month, he participated in a round of “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” with Savannah Guthrie on TODAY and initially answered a few questions correctly before stumbling on a question posed by his wife, Scarlett Johansson.
“This is the origin country of my last name,” she stated in a video.
“How much did you prepare to set me up on this?” he joked before guessing Denmark.
“I had to get that right,” he said, thinking he had nailed it.
Savannah then revealed that the “Black Widow” star anticipated Jost would get it wrong, sharing that the correct answer was actually Sweden. Baffled, Jost remarked that his family came from that country, though he didn’t clarify who “they” are.
“That’s a wild, I can’t say the word, loophole,” he said. “That’s not fair.”
“On ‘Pop Culture Jeopardy!’ we had judges who could sometimes overturn ridiculous decisions like that,” he added.
