‘SNL’ Head Writer on Edgy Sketches, Leslie Jones Slave Bit After Donald Trump “Racist” Episode

A photo posted by Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) on Nov 11, 2015 at 8:32am PST

Saturday Night Live has been known to have a controversial sketch or two over the past 41 years. And given this past weekend's episode with GOP candidate Donald Trump – you remember, the one where Larry David called him a "racist" during the monologue – alongside the likes of some social media stir due to a bit from Leslie Jones and slavery, the question of how edgy is too edgy appears to be at the forefront of everyone's mind.

That is, everyone who enjoys comedy, we guess.

Anyway, while Trump's episode was far (far, far, far!) from edgy, Saturday Night Live's head writer, Bryan Tucker recently spoke with HuffPost Live about the show's material that often tends to push the boundaries, specifically some bits that appeared to cause Twitter to explode—Jones' remarks about dating in the slave days and a monologue from comedian Louis C.K. in which he admitted to sometimes being racist.

"If I'm in a gas station late at night," C.K. said, "and a young man comes in wearing a hooded sweatshirt, if he's white I'll think oh, he's an athlete. If he's black, unless he has a big smile on his face, then I become mildly racist..."

To that "controversial" piece, HuffPost's Josh Zepp explained that the bit was not an admission of C.K. being racist, but in fact a tale about how the general public oftentimes fights "against our racist instincts." Which Tucker appeared to agree with, calling SNL a place that has incessantly welcomed edgy material, citing Richard Pryor and George Carlin from back when the show first began as examples.

"I think the difference now with the Internet is that everybody has a loudspeaker," Tucker said. "I think often that people- you just know what people are thinking a lot more because we have an outlet for it."

The interview then turned to Jones' bit on Weekend Update about slavery.

"I'm single right now, but back in the slave days I would have never been single," she said, adding that given her height and strength, her love life would have been rather active back in the day. "Master would have hooked me up with the best brother on the plantation," she joked.

On Jones' bit, Tucker said that was something she had already written and performed before; therefore, the writing staff had little to do with it. He also explained that while they pay attention to the comments about sketches, he's not so sure the staff reacts to it.