Sarah Sherman: How Sarah Squirm Brought Body Horror to SNL
Gross-out surrealism from the Chicago DIY scene, carried all the way to Studio 8H. A guide to Sarah Sherman's comedy and where to watch it.
Sarah Sherman, also known as Sarah Squirm, makes comedy that is meant to make you flinch. Fake blood, oozing prosthetics, warped video and characters that turn into monsters halfway through a sentence: it is surreal body-horror comedy, built in Chicago's DIY scene and, improbably, carried onto Saturday Night Live. She joined SNL in 2021, became famous for her Weekend Update roasts of Colin Jost, and released her HBO special Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh in 2025.
What kind of comedy is it?
People search "Sarah Sherman type of comedy" because her act doesn't fit the usual categories. The closest description is surreal gross-out horror-comedy. A typical Squirm piece starts as something recognisable (a commercial, a talk segment, a stand-up bit) and degrades into bodily chaos. The images are deliberately ugly; the energy is manic and joyful.
The influences are visible and worth naming. There is a lot of the low-budget horror film in her practical effects, and a lot of Tim and Eric in her distorted video and fake-commercial parodies. There is also a punk performance-art streak: the goal is to break the polite contract between performer and audience. Our guides to absurdist comedy and experimental comedy trace that lineage.
What stops it from being simply shock is her persona. On stage Sherman is gleeful and childlike, delighted by her own disgusting inventions, and that delight is infectious. The audience is not being punished; it is being invited to play.
Great Neck to Northwestern
Sherman was born in 1993 and grew up in Great Neck, on Long Island. She studied theatre at Northwestern University, graduating in 2015, and started performing in Chicago while still a student.
Chicago and Helltrap Nightmare
Chicago in the early 2010s had a strong alternative scene alongside its famous improv institutions: bar shows, DIY spaces and music venues where comedians could try things that would never fly at a club. That is where Sarah Squirm was born. She performed stand-up and, with several other performers, ran a monthly show called Helltrap Nightmare, a showcase for exactly the kind of loud, visual, gross, experimental comedy she was developing. She also headlined music venues such as the Empty Bottle.
The Chicago rooms gave her time to build an act around props, video and effects rather than just a microphone. For more on that ecosystem, see our guide to the Chicago comedy scene.
Writing for Eric Andre and Adult Swim
Before SNL, Sherman became part of the Adult Swim world. She wrote for The Eric Andre Show and the surreal sitcom Three Busy Debras, and made her TV debut in an Adult Swim infomercial-format special, Flayaway (2018). It was a natural fit: Adult Swim has long been home to comedy that looks broken on purpose.
Saturday Night Live
Sherman joined SNL as a featured player for its 47th season in 2021 and was promoted to repertory in 2023. Bringing her onto network television was a bold hire, and her pieces stand out in any episode: louder, stranger and more visually extreme than anything around them.
The Colin Jost roasts
Her signature recurring bit is appearing at the Weekend Update desk ostensibly to discuss a topic and instead relentlessly roasting co-anchor Colin Jost, often with mocked-up photos and gleeful insults about his privilege and his looks. Jost plays along as the bewildered straight man. The joke works because it inverts the show's hierarchy: the newest, weirdest cast member mercilessly attacking the establishment figure in the suit.
The practical-effects sketches
Her pre-taped and live sketches lean on practical effects and prosthetics. Her sketch "Shrimp Tower" won an Emmy for production design, a fitting honour for a comedian whose work depends so heavily on how things look. If you want to compare her approach with a castmate's, see our profile of Bowen Yang, whose Update characters work by a completely different, status-driven logic.
Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh (HBO, 2025)
Her first solo special, Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh, came out on HBO in 2025. It is the purest version of the act: a live show built around prosthetics, video, music and grotesque transformation, more like a horror-comedy concert than a conventional stand-up hour. If SNL is the edited version of Sarah Squirm, this is the uncut one.
How a Sarah Sherman sketch is built
Her sketch comedy follows a recognisable pattern, which is part of the pleasure once you know it.
- A familiar container. Most pieces start inside a format the audience knows: an advert, a news segment, a dating show, a wellness video.
- A small wrongness. Something about a body is off: a growth, a fluid, a face that won't stay still.
- Escalation through the body. Instead of escalating the dialogue, as most sketches do, she escalates the physical horror, until the container can no longer hold it.
- Unbothered delight. Through all of it her character stays cheerful, as if nothing is wrong. That contrast is where the laugh lives.
It is a different engine from the dialogue-driven sketch that dominates American TV, closer to a short horror film with jokes. That is why her pieces often feel like a different show has briefly taken over the broadcast, and why they are so shareable online. For a broader canon of the form she is bending, see our ranking of the greatest sketch shows.
Other work
- Film: voice and live-action roles including the animated Nimona (2023) and several Happy Madison comedies.
- Radio: since 2023 she has hosted Freakradio Emergency Hotline on the online station NTS Radio.
- Hosting: she has hosted the HBO Max game show Human vs Hamster.
Frequently asked questions
What type of comedy does Sarah Sherman do?
Surreal, gross-out and body-horror comedy: fake bodily fluids, grotesque prosthetics, distorted video, loud music and characters that mutate mid-scene. It comes from the Chicago DIY scene and owes a lot to horror films and to Tim and Eric-style anti-comedy.
Why is Sarah Sherman called Sarah Squirm?
Sarah Squirm is the stage name she used in Chicago and still uses for her live and solo work. It fits an act designed to make audiences flinch and laugh at the same time.
Did Sarah Sherman do stand-up in Chicago?
Yes. While at Northwestern and after graduating in 2015, she performed stand-up and hosted a monthly show called Helltrap Nightmare with other performers in Chicago's alternative and DIY rooms.
What is Sarah Sherman's sketch comedy on SNL known for?
Her Weekend Update roasts of co-anchor Colin Jost, and pre-taped and live sketches with heavy practical effects. Her sketch 'Shrimp Tower' won an Emmy for production design.