The ‘SNL’ Dress Rehearsal Audience Reportedly Chose Kam Patterson Over Jane Wickline

Jane Wickline might, randomly, be one of Saturday Night Live’s most controversial cast members. People either find her really, really funny, or really, really not funny. Her polarity at least partially stems from her Weekend Update appearances as herself, where she performs funny little songs about incredibly niche areas of interest. Again, for the people who like it, it’s great. For everyone else, it can draw tepid enthusiasm, at best. 

Kam Patterson was certainly gunning to become the new most controversial SNL cast member, with a history at Kill Tony, rumored MAGA tendencies and his comfort using slurs in his sets. Between the two, it’s like, what’s a few off-key songs to a Trump supporter? But Patterson’s reputation preceded his performance at Studio 8H. 

And according to one (unverified) account on Reddit, when it came down to who would sit at the Update desk for the Season 51 premiere of SNL, the audience chose Patterson over Wickline. 

Here’s what the account had to say: “According to people who were at the dress rehearsal for the Season 51 premiere, both Jane Wickline and Kam Patterson appeared as themselves on Weekend Update. Jane had a song about how Harry Styles was the fastest singer in the world (apparently there’s a trending news story that Harry Styles had ran the Berlin Marathon and finished in under 3 hours. Which is in the top 5% best all time finishes of the Berlin Marathon), and it was cut. And Kam’s piece made it to air.”

While I can’t fact-check whether or not the audience had a hand in Patterson’s piece making it to air over Wickline’s, I can confirm that Styles did actually run a 2-hour, 59-minute and 13-second Berlin Marathon, which, honestly, is worthy of more discussion. But, like Wickline’s cut bit, I’m gonna pivot away from Styles. 

As this is sourced from a Reddit post, the information is both shaky and hard to confirm. We do know, though, that Patterson was the first desk appearance of Update, followed by Bowen Yang as a trans-rights supporting Dobby from Harry Potter. As we at Cracked even admitted: Patterson’s first moments on the show were pretty impressive, even if he seemed a little bit nervous. 

That said, Wickline, I’d still be interested in hearing that marathon song on TikTok!