Colin Jost reacts to his epic game show fail in ‘humiliating’ throwback clip

Colin Jost may not be the weakest link on “Saturday Night Live,” but the same might not be true for when he competed on a game show years ago.

On the Jan. 20 episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Jost recalled an embarrassing moment when he was a contestant on a college episode of “The Weakest Link.”

“I was extremely nervous. It was in Los Angeles. I’d never been to Los Angeles before. I’d never been on any sort of show, and I was there. And I wouldn’t say that I did great on the show,” he said.

A few seconds later, a throwback clip of him on the show started to play. Sporting a Harvard sweatshirt and a slightly different haircut than what he wears now, Jost was asked what season it is in the Northern Hemisphere in August. He incorrectly guessed fall when the answer was summer.

After the clip, the “Tonight Show” audience howled in laughter, while Jost buried his head in his left hand.

“What season is August in and I said fall!” he said, mocking himself.

“By the way, (I) thought about it, then said ‘fall.’ So much more humiliating when you’re wearing a Harvard sweatshirt,” he continued, sending the audience into further hysterics.

Jost said he got on the show after getting a random phone call where the person on the other end asked if he wanted to be on a game show.

“I was like, ‘Sure!’” he said. “And I can’t believe this wasn’t a scam. And they gave me a trivia quiz over the thing and they were like, ‘We’re going to fly you to L.A.’”

Jost, who now hosts “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” on Prime Video, also recalled being reminded of how poorly he was doing on the show, thanks to a voiceover in every round.

Colin Jost didn’t exactly shine as a contestant on a college episode of “The Weakest Link.”

“And every single round, it was, ‘Statistically, the weakest link this round was Colin. Every single round. And I managed to get in, survive until the end and then I ran the table at the end,” he said.

Despite his good fortune, his poor play didn’t exactly net him a fortune.

“I had been so bad at the game that there was almost no money to win,” he said while noting he won about $5,000, which he said he used to buy beer and wine while in the hotel with the other contestants.

Botching seemingly easy questions is something of a habit for Jost. Last month, he played a round of “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” with Savannah Guthrie on TODAY and breezed through a few questions before he got stumped by a question about his wife, Scarlett Johansson, who also asked the question.

“This is the origin country of my last name,” she said in a video.

“How much did you plan to set me up on this?” he joked before guessing Denmark.

“I had to get that,” he said, thinking he nailed the answer.

Savannah then revealed that the “Black Widow” star knew Jost would get it wrong, while sharing the correct answer is Sweden. A baffled Jost then said they came over from that country, although he didn’t specify who “they” are.

“That is a crazy, I can’t say the word, loophole,” he said. “That’s not fair.”

“In ‘Pop Culture Jeopardy!’ we had judges and they could sometimes overturn things that were absurd, like that,” he added.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com