Cecily Strong has a particular talent for playing “Weekend Update” characters bristling with thinly veiled rage (recall “Claire from HR” from back in 2017), and last night’s Goober the Clown (who had an abortion when she was 23) was no exception. Goober doesn’t necessarily want to talk about her abortion, but “people keep bringing it up, so I gotta talk about freaking abortion.” She continues, “I wish I didn’t have to do this, because the abortion I had at 23 is my personal clown business.” Goober, who looks like the Tether of Loonette from Big Comfy Couch, performs a variety of clown tricks throughout her appearance, including making Colin Jost a balloon animal (“it’s a worm”), in order to make the “rough subject more palatable.”
Goober is frustrated by the stigma around (clown) abortion, explaining that while “one in three clowns will have an abortion in her lifetime,” “they don’t even know how to talk to other clowns about it, because when they do talk about it, if you were a clown who wasn’t the victim of something sad like clown-cest, they think your clown abortion wasn’t a ‘righteous clown abortion.’ I mean, what the dick is that?” The bit builds to a poignant conclusion, in which Goober advocates for her fellow clowns’ right to choose. At one point, Goober’s horn doesn’t honk properly, but Strong, through sheer willpower, makes it work. Watch the full bit above.
