Though Saturday Night Live is famous for skewering the biggest breaking stories as they are happening, this weekend’s edition notably ignored the explosive sexual-harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein. The omission, however, wasn’t in the original plan. New York Times reports that the late-night staple prepared several Weinstein-related jokes, but decided to cut them last minute. According to the Times, the show was set to include material referencing Weinstein’s alleged harassment in a sketch and during “Weekend Update,” but both were removed during dress rehearsal. A source inside the show suggested that the reason for the cuts was pragmatic rather than political, as the removed material reportedly “seemed to fall flat with the studio audience.”
While SNL creator Lorne Michaels didn’t comment in the Times, he told a videographer for the Daily Mail that Weinstein’s absence from the show was “a New York thing.”
