‘SNL’s Michael Che and Colin Jost Jacked to Host First-Ever St. Patrick’s Eve Countdown: ‘Why Not?’

Sometimes the stars align and magic happens. But this leap year, the heavens have misaligned and robbed St. Patrick’s Day revelers of the first chance in six years to paint the town green on a Saturday because of the leap year.

So when a nation needs brave heroes to do the right thing and save them from having to shake their shamrocks on a Sunday, Saturday Night Live “Weekend Update” co-anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost have bravely stepped up to the challenge with a brand-new holiday celebration.

“We’re not making up a holiday, this is a freak occurrence,” Che explains about the decision by the duo to team up with Jameson Irish Whiskey to create a new, totally fabricated holiday they’re calling “Jameson St. Patrick’s Eve.” The faux festival will take place on March 16, complete with a St. Patrick’s Eve countdown in New York’s Times Square hosted by the duo.

“Why not St. Patrick’s Eve? You’ve got Christmas Eve, you’ve got New Year’s Eve,” Che says. While acknowledging that New Yorkers don’t really need an excuse to start the party before 10 a.m., Che says he and Jost are not recommending that revelers start that early, but “we do recommend you have one or two at, say 10:30 a.m.,” with Jost adding, “if you work until 9 a.m. it’s a very reasonable time to have a drink… [like if you’re a ] longshoremen.”

“Or short shoremen,” Che quipped, with Jost chiming in, “yeah, we don’t discriminate… I’ve always through I really want to start a religion for tax purposes, so starting a holiday is a first step.” The pair, both native New Yorkers, say they take their St. Patrick’s day celebrations very seriously, with the always-on-message Che noting that the holiday reminds him of “friendship, fellowship, and of course, Jameson.”

“When Leap Year skipped over a Saturday St. Patrick’s Day, we did exactly what a Jameson would do: we created a completely new holiday so people can start celebrating St. Patrick’s Day a little early,” says the brand’s VP of marketing Johan Radojewski in a statement announcing the hokum holiday party that will also include a guest appearance from an as-yet-unnamed DJ. “We teamed up with Colin Jost and Michael Che to help us seize this moment and encourage everyone to embrace St. Patrick’s Eve, because they’re a duo who appreciates a smooth Irish Whiskey, good company, and a brand-new holiday – just like any Jameson would.” 

The St. Patrick’s Eve party Times Square takeover will also feature the first-of-its-kind “rock drop,” Jameson’s spin on the famous New Year’s eve ball drop, which will take place at 8 p.m. ET (midnight in Ireland). Che says he’s so excited about the party, in fact, that he’s considering his first stage dive. “I’ve been saving it, now is the time I feel,” he says, with Jost, as usual, perfectly yes-anding his co-anchor’s bit by comparing the scene he expects to the one in The Thomas Crown Affair “where they’re all walking around in bowler hats at the end? Except it will be a sea of green plastic hats.”

The real holiday evokes fond memories for Jost, who often marched with firefighters in two St. Patrick’s Day parades as a kid, in Manhattan and Staten Island, alongside his mother and grandfather, both of whom worked for the fire department. Che, on the other hand, jokes that he doesn’t have any specific memories of the holiday, because “it’s St. Patrick’s day and if you have memories after St. Patrick’s Day you’re doing it wrong.”

The one thing the “Update” anchors could not reveal was the name of the DJ, though Che teases that “no it’s not a British guy name ‘Prize’ who was knighted. It’s a surprise!”

Starting today, fans can enter a chance to get a spot on the guest list for the Jameson St. Patrick’s Eve party and anyone 21+ can check out a livestream of the rock drop here. The party will take place between 43rd and 44th Streets from 6-10 p.m. EST. In addition, Jameson will light up the Sphere in Las Vegas in Jameson green, wrap ferries and water taxies in the dyed-green Chicago River and do a digital takeover at L.A. Live to mark the holiday.