Michael Kosta’s “The Daily Show” monologue was briefly derailed Wednesday evening after his studio audience audibly groaned at one morbid sinkhole joke.
The comedian found himself discussing “a sinkhole pandemic” Wednesday evening as “The Daily Show” played news footage highlighting the growing problem in the United States.
“The danger lurking underground from old and abandoned mines eroding away and causing sinkholes and other incidents across the country,” a reporter could be heard saying. “This 30-foot sinkhole swallowing a chunk of a suburban South Dakota street, others swallowing cars, each of these hundreds of thousands of dots tied to a mine.”
In response to this revelation, Kosta hit back with, “There’s a sinkhole pandemic?! I thought the whole job of the ground was to be the ground. What do you mean there’s a ground under the ground? What the f–k have I been walking on this whole time?”
Here’s where Kosta briefly lost his audience. “This is so messed up,” he further stated. “Mines are only supposed to kill the people who work in them.”
At this moment, the “Daily Show” studio audience awkwardly laughed before audibly groaning in unison. However, Kosta took the response in stride, quickly quipping, “Your first reaction was to laugh at that.”
This seemed to right things, as the crowd could be heard loudly laughing following the playful call out. He got another round of laughter when he joked, concluding the sinkhole commentary, “By the way, make sure you save a photo of that map, because, if you do a Google search for miner holes near me, the FBI is going to show up.”
Watch Kosta’s full monologue above.
“The Daily Show” airs weeknights at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.
