“Weekend Update” co-anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost tag-teamed their criticisms of cartoonist Scott Adams on this week’s Saturday Night Live. And even Dilbert, Adams’ most famous—and really, really white—creation joined in on the takedown.
In February, Adams—a vocal Donald Trump supporter—went off on a racist rant in which he described Blackness as “a hate group” and encouraged his readers to “just get the fuck away” from Black people.” In the wake of his hateful tirade, Adams has been dumped by his comic distributor and book publisher, along with millions of fans. But Che and Jost still had much more to say on the topic.
“Newspapers dropped the cartoon strip [Dilbert] effective immediately,” Jost explained. “And to rub it in, they’re replacing Dilbert with ‘Peanuts: Oops All Franklin.’”
The duo, however, were not done with Adams yet. Later in the segment, Che welcomed Dilbert himself, A.K.A. the whitest cartoon you know, to sit at the “Update” desk and air an ongoing list of grievances with his creator—including giving the character skin for hair.
While Dilbert’s main reason for appearing on SNL initially seemed to be an attempt to wash the stink off himself, and to apologize to Che “for racism,” it soon became clear that Adams’ ignorance may have worn off on Dilbert, which took the conversation in a whole new, and somewhat disturbing, direction when Dilbert delivered the news that there’s a “race war” coming.
“Are you ready,” Dilbert wanted to know, “because Dilbert’s ready. I woke up this morning ready to take the streets and paint the city with the blood of the white man.”
Engineering humor has never felt so dangerous.
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