When sexual misconduct allegations against Matt Lauer were made public on Thursday, everyone’s thoughts immediately turned to Ann Curry. After Curry was let go from Today where she’d been for years, most recently as Lauer’s co-anchor, reports indicated Lauer had helped to foster an environment of “professional torture.” After Lauer was terminated from Today, imagined Ann Curry reactions became a Twitter meme.
It was somewhat of a foregone conclusion that the fellow NBC family members at Saturday Night Live would make some mention of Lauer, which they did very briefly during Weekend Update. Very briefly. Just two quick lines. The first was, “On Wednesday, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was lit, and so was Ann Curry.” The second was a mention of Lauer’s “gift” of a sex toy to an employee and a joke about Michael Che giving the same gift to co-anchor Colin Jost.
As jokes go it was awkward and questionable at best. The best part was the lead-in, discussing how new batches of predators have become such a common part of the news, they should be read “like PowerBall numbers,” but otherwise the Weekend Update team went a bit soft on Lauer. Maybe he can print a screenshot of this Weekend Update to hang in his office. Oh, oops, sorry, his office has been demolished.