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Watch Seth Meyers Make the Perfect Bill Cosby Joke

2 minute read

Late night TV hosts have (understandably) been hesitant to make jokes about the growing sexual assault allegations against comedian, sweater enthusiast and Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby. But on Thursday’s episode of Late Night, Seth Meyers decided to tackle the topic with something that was more of an elaborate meta-joke than a simple, straightforward quip.

A planted audience member begins pestering Meyers about his take on the scandal and eventually gets fellow audience members to begin chanting “Bill Cosby joke! Bill Cosby joke! Bill Cosby joke!” Meyers eventually gives in, and the audience member soon realizes that he had, uh, misunderstood what the whole scandal was even about.

The four-minute sketch becomes more of a general commentary on why it’s not a good idea for comedians to make light of this issue — and how challenging it is to do so effectively.

Conan O’Brien also made a Cosby joke Thursday night, though his was more of a quick quip thrown hastily into an otherwise unrelated sketch. Watch about two and a half minutes in:

So far, it seems other late night hosts are still hanging back and avoiding the scandal altogether.

Read next: So What Do We Do About The Cosby Show?

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