Former Saturday Night Live Star Blasts Show for Jerry Sandusky Sketch
Comedian Colin Quinn plans to boycott NBC over offensive sketch
Comedian Colin Quinn, best known for his role as the inarticulate news anchor on Saturday Night Live's “Weekend Update,” has been left shocked by an SNL sketch that made fun of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, tweeting to his followers on Sunday that it was evidence of the “coarsening of the culture,” especially since it was done right after the Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
The sketch, titled Coach Bert, was a press conference for a college basketball team in which the head coach, played by Jason Sudeikis, wanted to make sure that there were not any “sexual predators” on his coaching staff, and singled out “Coach Burt” as a potential pedophile because of his strange behavior. However, Coach Bert was not, and the joke was that the head coach, district attorney, the FBI, and a “real” pedophile have to “explain” why he is not, in fact, a pedophile.
On Sunday, Quinn took to Twitter to express his disgust: “Nice Sandusky sketch on SNL last night. Yeah, real appropriate. Real classy. I'm ashamed I was ever associated with that show. #toosoon,” he tweeted.
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He added: “Plus it was right after the tree lighting. Talk about wrong place, wrong time. #coarsening of the culture.”
Quinn, who grew up in an Irish-Catholic environment in Brooklyn and is known to be more socially conservative than most comedians, was attacked by his followers who called him everything from a hypocrite and a censor to a “bitter” ex-employee of SNL.
Most of the tweets directed at Quinn are unsuitable for publication on The Christian Post.
Quinn defended his performances on the show, saying they did not go as far as the Coach Bert sketch.
“When I was on the show yeah we got a little 'edgy' sometimes. We like to 'push the envelope' but never to where it made people go 'whoa!',” he tweeted.
In response to being called a censor, Quinn responded: “I don't believe in censorship but there's certain things people shouldn't be allowed to say. That's just common sense.”
Despite the onslaught from fans, Quinn insisted that the skit was simply “too much” and said he will boycott NBC and the products advertised on the network.
“I guess I'm not 'hip' enough,” he said. “I'll tell you this much, NBC just lost a viewer. And the advertisers just lost a purchaser of their products!"
