“Saturday Night Live” star Colin Jost revisited his Staten Island roots — and endured increasingly spicy chicken wings — during his May 21 appearance on Hot Ones.

Some of the interview’s most memorable moments came when he revisited his unlikely beginnings as an overnight reporter at the Staten Island Advance.

The episode, hosted by Sean Evans and viewed nearly 900,000 times on YouTube, paired progressively hotter wings with questions about comedy, journalism and Staten Island life.

As the heat intensified, so did Jost’s reflections on the borough that shaped both his humor and his work ethic.

Now the longest-running “Weekend Update” anchor in “SNL” history, Jost spent part of the interview reflecting on the years before national television, when he worked the 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. shift covering overnight news for the Staten Island Advance.

Jost — who is married to movie star Scarlett Johansson and recently became host of Pop Culture Jeopardy! — joked that many people still seem skeptical that he is actually from Staten Island, especially compared with fellow comedian Pete Davidson.

“He is more South Shore, and I’m more North Shore,” Jost said. “I feel like no one believes that I’m from Staten Island, or they don’t see it in me. Like, they believe Pete is.”

But when the conversation turned to his newspaper days, Jost’s tone shifted from playful to appreciative.

He credited the Advance newsroom with teaching him the discipline that later carried him into a carrer in comedy writing.

“People who worked there — even compared to journalists at their most prestigious newspapers now — I feel like they were really good journalists,” Jost said. “The editors there really trained me to be really on top of facts, double-check everything.”

He recalled learning those lessons the hard way after trying to inject too much flair into a routine article.

In one story, Jost wrote that a reluctant interview subject had a welcome mat outside the door “but I didn’t feel very welcome at the house.”

“My editor was like, ‘The hell is this?’” Jost said, laughing. “He was like, ‘You know what else has a welcome mat? Every other door.’”

The critique stuck with him. Long before writing punchlines for millions of viewers, Jost learned that clean, factual writing mattered more than clever phrasing.

Still, the interview’s standout story involved a bizarre overnight assignment that perfectly captured the strange theater of local journalism.

Jost said he was sent to cover a Staten Island car crash where everyone involved survived unharmed. But one of the vehicles had struck a raccoon, prompting paramedics to attempt CPR on the animal.

“The paramedics were already there, so they performed CPR on the raccoon and saved the raccoon’s life,” Jost said.

Hours later, the story took another turn. Jost said the EMTs called the newsroom to tell him that animal control had euthanized the raccoon after it was rescued.

“So then it became front-page news,” he said. “It got into, like, what are the rules? Should you be reporting these raccoons, or are they gonna be euthanized?”

The raccoon saga, absurd and strangely heartfelt at once, became one of the interview’s funniest moments while underscoring Jost’s affection for the unpredictability of local reporting.

Throughout the conversation, Jost described his time at the Advance as “very real reporting” — grounded in neighborhood concerns, overnight crime stories and the rhythms of everyday Staten Island life.

Though far removed from the polished chaos of “Saturday Night Live,” he said the experience taught him how to write clearly, work under pressure and understand an audience.

That foundation eventually carried him from hyperlocal reporting assignments to becoming one of the defining writers and on-air personalities at “SNL.”

Earlier in the interview, Jost also discussed the pressure of writing topical comedy every week, his transition from writer to performer, and his longtime creative partnership with fellow “Weekend Update” co-anchor Michael Che.