The Moment
On this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, cast member Sarah Sherman showed up on Weekend Update dressed as the internet’s latest unlikely folk hero: the so-called “drunk raccoon” that tore through a Virginia liquor store.
Colin Jost introduced her as the raccoon “here to explain their actions,” and out she came, sliding across the desk like a furry wrecking ball, clutching a bottle and playing absolutely annihilated.
In character, Sherman immediately turned it into flirty chaos, asking Jost if they had hooked up the night before and suggesting they could get handsy right there on the desk. When Jost deadpanned that the raccoon had a “serious drinking problem,” Sherman shot back that the real problem was not being able to get drunk in a bathroom without people taking pictures of her “face down, ass up.”
She also threw in a pointed political jab, snapping “Quiet, piggy” at Jost, a reference to Donald Trump’s recent insult to a reporter, and rattled off all the names raccoons hear from humans: “trash pandas, dumpster dogs, the Sarah Shermans of the forest.” Jost replied that the raccoon wasn’t nearly as hairy as the real Sarah, because of course he did.
All of this was inspired by a very real raccoon, found passed out on the floor of a liquor store bathroom in Ashland, Virginia after smashing bottles and essentially throwing its own solo bar crawl, according to a December 2025 Associated Press report. The animal was eventually collected by local animal protection, slept it off, and was released back into the wild.
The Take
I have to hand it to SNL: dressing Sarah Sherman up as a blackout raccoon might be the most accurate metaphor for American pop culture I’ve seen in years.
Think about it. We’ve got a wild animal that accidentally gets hammered, trashes a small business, passes out in a public bathroom, and instead of everyone just quietly fixing the mess, the story becomes a national punchline and a sketch on late night. That is our attention economy in a fur coat.
Sherman leans into it with her usual brand of unhinged, body-horror comedy, but the jokes land because they’re uncomfortably familiar. Party too hard, get caught in one bad photo, and suddenly you’re the “trash panda” of your friend group. Her bit about not being able to get drunk in a bathroom without cameras? That’s every celebrity’s nightmare and every bystander’s favorite pastime.
The sketch also does something SNL admittedly loves to do: launder real-world weirdness into something safer to laugh at. It’s easier to process Trump’s nastiness when it’s coming from a glitter-eyed raccoon calling Colin Jost “piggy.” It’s easier to joke about binge drinking when it’s a woodland creature we’ll never have to put in an Uber.
Is SNL chasing a meme? Absolutely. But this one works because Sherman is in on the joke about herself. Calling raccoons “the Sarah Shermans of the forest” is basically her saying, “Yes, I know I’m the chaotic one,” and inviting the audience to laugh with her, not at her. It’s like watching your wildest friend roast their own worst photo before anyone else can post it.
The bigger question is whether this is where late-night lives now: race to find the weirdest viral story and spin it into a character before Sunday brunch. If so, Sherman just set the bar uncomfortably high for “things we did not expect to see on TV after 11:30 p.m.”
‘SNL’ star Sarah Sherman dresses up as the viral drunk raccoon in chaotic ‘Weekend Update’ skit https://t.co/bb8dRaNGfs pic.twitter.com/2pKNL6F1nG
— Page Six (@PageSix) December 8, 2025
Receipts
- Confirmed: The “Weekend Update” bit aired on the December 7, 2025 episode of Saturday Night Live, with Sarah Sherman appearing in full raccoon costume opposite Colin Jost. The dialogue about hooking up, having a “serious drinking problem,” being photographed “face down, ass up,” and calling Jost “piggy” appears in the broadcast and official clips released by NBC.
- Confirmed: The real raccoon incident occurred at a liquor store in Ashland, Virginia, where staff found the animal passed out in the bathroom after it had broken bottles and created a pool of spilled alcohol. Local animal control confirmed the raccoon was not seriously injured and was released after sobering up, according to an Associated Press report published in early December 2025.
- Confirmed: An entertainment report dated December 8, 2025 describes Sherman’s on-air comments about being called “trash pandas” and “dumpster dogs,” plus Jost’s jab about her being hairier than the raccoon.
- Unverified / fan chatter: Online reactions calling this “the most chaotic Weekend Update in years” and suggesting Sherman “needs her own raccoon spin-off” are social media opinions, not official plans from SNL or NBC.
Sources (human-readable): December 7, 2025 broadcast of Saturday Night Live (Weekend Update segment); early December 2025 Associated Press report on the Ashland, Virginia liquor store raccoon; December 8, 2025 entertainment write-ups summarizing the sketch.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you’re not glued to late-night or TikTok, here’s the quick catch-up. Sarah Sherman, sometimes billed as Sarah Squirm, is one of SNL’s more offbeat cast members, known for weird, high-energy characters and body-horror gags. Colin Jost is the long-running co-anchor of Weekend Update and, yes, Scarlett Johansson’s husband. Earlier this month, a real raccoon made headlines after being discovered unconscious in a Virginia liquor store bathroom, apparently after drinking spilled alcohol from broken bottles. The bizarre story went viral, complete with security footage and local news coverage, and quickly picked up “drunk raccoon” status online. SNL, never one to resist a quirky headline, turned that into Saturday night material.
What’s Next
Will we see the drunk raccoon again? With SNL, if a character hits, it tends to come back until the bit is completely wrung dry. Think of every recurring “Weekend Update” visitor who started as a one-off oddball. If reaction clips of Sherman’s raccoon keep bouncing around social media, don’t be shocked if she shows up again for an “update” on her recovery or maybe a stint in woodland rehab.
It’s also worth watching how often SNL leans into these hyper-specific viral news items this season. Are we in the era of “if it trends, it’s a sketch”? And for Sherman specifically, this just reinforces her niche: the cast member you call when you need to make the weirdest possible choice.
For now, the real raccoon is back in the wild, and Sarah Sherman has officially joined that tiny club of performers who can say they’ve played both “themselves” and a blackout woodland creature on national television.
Your turn: Is SNL’s drunk raccoon sketch smart commentary on viral culture, or does it feel like late-night chasing memes a little too hard?
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