Cecily Strong May Have Referenced 'SNL' At WHCD

Cecily Strong definitely made an impression worthy of her last name while hosting the 2015 White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night. Strong was able to poke fun at everyone in Washington, including President Obama, and she did a great job of finding the balance between funny and controversial in many jokes about important social issues like women's rights, racism, and LGBT rights. The great speech was basically expected, considering how awesome she was during her time at the Weekend Update desk on Saturday Night Live (it still hurts that she's gone, you guys). But what I was hoping for more than anything else was at least a few jokes or references to one of her most beloved characters from Saturday Night Live that actually appears during Weekend Update. Come on, you all know who I'm talking about, it's the Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started A Conversation With At A Party! While Strong mostly stayed away from rehashing that character and focusing more on witty zingers, there was one moment that might have been a reference to Strong's (arguably) best recurring character.

Towards the beginning of her speech, Strong started pointing out and poking fun at news outlets and celebrities that were in attendance, including casts of popular television shows like Game of Thrones. When she got to the cast of ABC's new hit series Black-ish, she made this comment, "The cast of ABC's Black-ish is here, which I think is very inappropriate after the way they treated those whales at SeaWorld."

Get it? No? That's alright, it took a little time for the crowd at the event to get it as well. Clearly Strong was making a joke about how Black-ish sounds similar to the documentary Blackfish (trailer above), which focused on an orca named Tilikum that was held in captivity at SeaWorld and was later involved in the deaths of three people.

Obviously Strong herself knows the difference between these two projects, and it's possible she was just trying to make a classic pun. But I like to think that Strong wanted to infuse a tiny part of her famous SNL character into the speech to bring a little extra laughter and silliness to the night's proceedings.

The joke occurs at about 8:15 in the video below, but I recommend watching the whole speech. It's totally worth it.

Image: Screengrab/NBC