The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast - Breaking Down Mike O'Brien's SNL Digital Shorts

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Special Guest Mike O’Brien joins the podcast to breakdown some of his most memorable shorts on SNL including The Jay Z Story, 7 Minutes in Heaven, Dragon Babies, Sad Mouse, Technology Hump, and more! Sad Mouse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSDBWIECtbAThe Jay Z Story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzg9Iu0uEegProm Queen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqHiMkVvxoGrow-a-Guy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDkCiQ-z5O0Dragon Babies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JssMmgQyy607 Minutes in Heaven - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT-eE7F70XA&list=PL9otiYKbK0wCOi1QaXGrKRxYsliqpWz_EWe’re Going to Make Technology Hump - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDOU7Ye76tIOutrageous Clown Squad (Kickspit Dirt Festival) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alI12mhWZ2Q&t=72sCheck out AP Bio on Netflix (Not all the clips we mention are available online; some never even aired.) If you want to see more photos and clips follow us on Instagram @lonelymeyerspod. Send us an email! [e-mail] Support our sponsors:AirbnbVisit Airbnb.com today ShopifySign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at SHOPIFY.COM/lonelyisland Thrive MarketReady for a junk-free start to 2025? Head to Thrive Market.com/island and get 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift!  Produced by Rabbit Grin ProductionsExecutive Producers Jeph Porter and Rob HolyszLead Producer Kevin MillerCreative Producer Samantha SkeltonCoordinating Producer Derek JohnsonCover Art by Olney AtwellMusic by Greg Chun and Brent AsburyEdit by Cheyenne JonesMix and Master by Jason Richards

The Lonely Island Seth Meyers Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Lonely Island Seth Meyers Podcast. We're doing another special episode. It is very much due to all the turmoil in Los Angeles and just try to figure out the logistics of doing this, but we have a very exciting guest today. First of all, I'm here with Yorma. What's up, Yorm? Woo, I'm pumped.

I feel like terrible choice of vibe and energy right after I talked about the fires. And I'm also somber, yes. Awesome. We're also joined by Mike O'Brien. Hello, Mike. Woo! What's up, guys, I'm somber too.

Yeah, I feel like Yorm laid out a real what not to do. Sorry. All right, so Mike, this is very exciting. You did a series of short films at SNL, most of which I realized when I went back to watch were after I left, but I was there when you got hired. What year did you start at the show? 2009 was when I got the Seth Meyers call,

but jumping back real quick, I was flown out from Chicago in 2004, waiting to go in and do an in-studio audition next to a young Yorma. And we were chit-chatting and talking about calling our parents or something. Do you have any recollection of it? It'd be a boat. Oh my God. Like, the minute you actually said it, it did hurt. But I was so nervous. I was like probably between vomiting when I talked to you. But like as soon as you said it, I was like, that's right. Yeah. I have no idea where that was because it was not in 8H. No, it's such a bummer to have

the experience of auditioning for the show and then not get to at least have been on the stage at age Yeah, yeah, we were in some side room some shitty side some big empty room with the Auditor sitting even further away than when I came back in 2009 How did you do? How was your audition awful? I was gonna show them what an artiste from Chicago is all about At one point I I did improv an artiste from Chicago is all about. You did it years later. At one point, I did improv.

Oh, no. I got out of Guinness Book of World Records and I flipped and I said, tell me when to stop and I'll try to break that record. And they weren't saying stop. I kept going all the way through and finally Tina was like, she probably said stop, like, please stop. She was like, stop. said stop, like please stop. She was like, stop. You built in a fail state,

which is you did a thing so terrible that you knew you'd get them to say stop at some point. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Oh my God, yeah, good times. That is very bold, but it's interesting you said that because I, I'm gonna jump ahead, I was not sort of in the decision-making team in 04.

So I don't have the same recollection as you coming through then. But I remember going to IO with Lauren in the lower room at the old IO when we were doing a showcase or we were seeing a showcase. You came out and I think the nice part of this is you did not learn your lesson, but Lauren came around to appreciating what you're doing. Do you remember that bit you used to do about how you were going to come out and play the spoons? Yeah, it was a guy I was teaching spoons.

And all I remember about it was that it was based on my freshman college roommate who would play guitar with headphones on and the amp plugged in so it was not disturbing us but what he didn't know is when he started playing speed metal he'd go like and so I was a spoons guy who couldn't help but make those noises I guess or whatever. But you dragged a chair to the front of the stage Lauren and I were pretty close to the front of the stage and you're doing this spoons bit. It was very esoteric because I also feel like most other people that night,

which probably would have been the advice I would have given you, did a way more classic SNL audition. Yeah. You did the spoons thing. The moral of the story is one, your instincts were right and two, it's a real credit to Lauren because I had known you. I was rooting for you to do well.

You were doing the spoons thing, which I thought was very funny, but seeing it through Lauren's eyes, I definitely thought, well, not gonna happen for old Mike. And then we left, and I remember Lauren saying, you know, I think there was something to the spoons guy. And he really did sort of see and then I mean it bore exactly

the kind of fruit you would think from the person who did the spoons bit. Like you did do esoteric stuff that Lauren really celebrated in your time on the show. Yeah, I mean he didn't celebrate it to me. He's not a celebratory kind of guy. He said one time after season one we'd done Tina Fey as a nine-inch tall hooker. And he's like, the only thing it was missing was a single joke. Still a writer. He always surprises you by revealing that he's a writer. Yeah, he always surprises you.

Solid burns. I always joke forward. Can I ask it? This is unfair, because I always try to remember how to explain this bit I saw joke forward. Can I ask, this is unfair, because I always try to remember how to explain this bit I saw you do. I saw you do a one-person show in Chicago when I went back to visit. You did a wordless sketch, which was a guy eating cookies out of maybe like a Chips Ahoy package.

Do you know the bit I'm talking about? Yeah, you did a bit in that show, didn't you? Isn't that? I do remember sort of being backstage at one point. But yeah, that guy, it's that, yeah, I don't know how this will play in description, but he's- It's very unfair to ask you to do a wordless visual sketch on a podcast.

He's housing some chips, ahoy cookies, and he's gotten it so it's half empty. And then there's a knock at the door that was usually our friend Peter Gross. And so he thinks he's being clever by taking the tray out and turning it around. So I guess this person will not notice that he's eaten 20 cookies or whatever. And then it just was a minute and a half of the knocking getting more frantic and the struggle to get, if you ever try to get those plastic trays back in the, Yeah.

And then a slow fade and then kind of a realization from the audience of like, oh, we're never gonna know who was at the door or what's going on, okay. Yeah, but what we did know was this has happened before. Yeah, yeah. You know what it means? Like whoever's at the door and you have had issues over how many cookies you've eaten.

It probably wasn't his package of cookies, I'm guessing. Yeah. So your order was writer then cast member. Yeah, then a hybrid demotion. Okay, so you got a promotion. Yeah, if you call cast a promotion, which I always resented as a writer. Right. But yeah, so I did four years of writing,

fifth year was in the cast, sixth year they said, you're back to a writer but you can be in your own videos. Okay. That's good. Yeah. That's a good. It's fine.

Not bad. I also do remember calling you to tell you you had the writer's job, which is very exciting because one, I was a fan, two, we were friends. Yoram, I called him from the set of MacGruber. Oh, wow. very exciting because one, I was his fan, two, we were friends. And Yoram, I called him from the set of MacGruber. Oh, wow. I remember that's where I was.

I was in New Mexico. Yeah, because you always remember where you were. Yeah. But you don't always remember, I guess, where you were when you called the guy. Yeah, that's true. Right. Yeah. And mine, I would have remembered almost any call because I was on an elevator at Northwestern

Hospital going up to meet my nephew Liam, who had been born a day before. So it was already a very memorable day. And then I was like, I don't know if I'd known New York number. I was like, weird number. And that was it. And then your sister was probably like, not very cool how you just walked in and stole my thunder. It's true. I'm like, who wants a picture with me instead of the baby? You walked in and said, a lot of babies got born yesterday, but guess what only happened

to me? It truly was the biggest thunder seal. All right, one year in the cast. So is Sad Mouse the first Mike O'Brien film? Yeah. And I don't think it had that card. Right. I think it was the first Matt and Oz directed anything as well.

I don't know if they'd done a commercial parody or what Matt Vellines and Oz Rodriguez are the pair that you see at the beginning and end of these. And yeah, Sad Mouse was the first. It was in my fourth writing year. I wasn't in the cast. And so you also were not in this short. So I think this is the only one we're going to talk about where I was still at the show.

This is the one I saw too and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed. How many did you do before you got on the cast? I don't know, maybe just one or two. It might've just been that. Yeah. I think there was that and then a long pause and then maybe grow a guy which was when I was on the cast. But I remember at some point, Seth, you being like,

do you have another sad mouse? And I was like, I can't think of anything, no. It's pretty great. Well, the best thing about sad mouse is, and Yoram, can you sing us into a Seth's Corner real quick? Seth's Corner, you're all invited. Seth's Corner, it's happening right now. Take it away, Seth.

So Bruno Mars is host and musical guest. And I think this tells you the difference between Mike and I, and also how writers come from many different cloths, and the best writing staff you can have is a diversity of takes. So I sit in my room and I'm thinking, what could Bruno Mars do? And I realized he can sing in any genre, he can do all these voices. And so I wrote a sketch where I think it was Pandora at the time, right? It wasn't Spotify.

That's right. No, you're right. It was Pandora headquarters and Pandora went down and he was the janitor at Pandora and he had to sing all the music. Now that is a very good example of what can this guy do that no one else can do. And he was fantastic in it. And I actually can't go back and watch it because it is one of the sketches that I remember going a little bit better at dress.

And so I'm still just a little mad at how, because it required a lot of choreography and a lot of really intense cutting. And it was just, it was not bad in there, but it was so perfect at dress. But then Mike was like, oh, Bruno Mars, I know what that guy should do. Wear a full, full mouse costume

and walk around Times Square being sad. Literally nothing about Bruno Mars makes you think he'd be good as a sad guy. It's just like a bottle of joy. Was that him the entire time? I assume it was. No. Oh, was it?

No, no, no. We got him to take his head off a few times and it was like too crazy that it would be Bruno Mars from the neck down mouse costume. So tourists were walking right by just like, get out of the way, dude. Oh, I just assumed it was like Brad Pitt and Jackass. Like he wanted to do his own stunts. Like he was like, yeah, I'm in it for the long haul. No, because it was becoming like, you know, 1 a.m. or whatever.

But yeah, then there was a guy from the film department that did the rest. But, oh, I rewatched, I keep calling it Spotify and it does Google that way. But yeah, it's Pandora. And it was so good. I thought Sad Mouse was also better at dress. So maybe that was a hotter audience too. Yeah, right. I'm blaming it on other things. And it's just not, it was just a hotter audience.

Because the Michael Jackson lean and everything were still really tight, I thought. And today, because it's great in it, it's really super fun. Yeah. The thing I loved about Sad Mouse and rewatching it was that it reminded me, we did like a recap of all the SNL shorts, like our third or fourth year, and it was like Andy like hosting it in a movie theater, and it went through like the Albert Brooks ones. And there were a couple of shorts that played that were SNL shorts that were just concepts, and they weren't necessarily hilarious, but they were like

short films that just either moved you or like, you know, there was one with like these mariachis and ballerinas dancing together that I was always just like, this is really inspired. And there was something about that one that I was just like, this is really nice. And I was also like knowing you, Mike, and what you're capable of and how deeply sarcastic you can get to sort of like see this sort of introspective, sincere side of it was really sweet. I mean, I watched a bunch of yours today. Like, there is a core sincerity that goes through all of them. So I feel like we are bearing the purpose.

So Sad Mouse starts with Bruno Mars. He's talking to Zendaya about how bad things are going. I think it's a girlfriend broke up with him. Yeah, girlfriend played by Sarah Schneider in a photo. Oh right, in the photo of her friend Sarah Schneider. And she said she loved me, but she couldn't picture me as her husband. And that was it, man.

Six years of my life, gone. And it all went down the same week, and my dad says he has another family. He had them the whole time. He likes them even more because they're smarter. And here's where you can't rewatch these. It drives me crazy that we didn't stay on him for the word smarter.

Yeah. And when you get into camera angles when you're into camera angles, when you're rewatching, then it's not fun. But anyway. And then Sudeikis is sort of taking this in and you don't quite know their relationship. And then it turns out Sudeikis basically says,

this is the easiest a hundred bucks you're ever gonna make. You're gonna put on this patriotic mouse costume, walk around in Times Square and take pictures. And then people pay you and we'll split it 50-50. And then, oh, he says, you gotta wave at people. And Bruno, and I will say watching it back, I kinda can't believe Bruno hasn't been an actor. He's so good at it.

And his face is so, I mean, it's so camera friendly. Yeah. Very. He's handsome. And he's crying hard, which is a really hard thing as an actor to do. And I give him all the credit and Sudeikis too, who was of course sitting straight and Bruno was nervous about like crying and everything. And they were just in their own little world and Jason was kind of talking to him quietly.

And there was as much directing probably from him as Matt and Oz. And but Bruno killed it. Yeah. He probably has he not been in stuff? I don't know. It seemed like such a good calling card to have somebody have the brilliant idea in Hollywood to be like, hey, you know who might be good? Is this Bruno Mars? Right. They do that with any popular singer. So how did he not?

But yeah. And then he says, you know, he wants the job obviously, but he's really worried in his fragile state that if he waves at somebody and they don't wave back, it's gonna be like the straw that broke the camel's back. And so we're all just sort of watching and rooting. And the one of course callback to the setup is

Bruno Mars is like sitting in Times Square. It's clearly just regular people. Like you said, Mike, nobody's clocking that it's Bruno Mars. And he looks at, he's got a letter from his girlfriend and then he also has a letter from his dad. Which I feel like a dad who had a secret second family wouldn't send, wouldn't tell you with a photo of the new family.

That's definitely, definitely my favorite joke. But then it just resolves itself with, you know, he sees somebody in a frog costume, and they just kind of wave at each other. There's no, there's nothing more than that, but it's genuinely, you can tell by the audience reaction, there was an emotional investment in it. I think I was just so happy that it didn't end

with it being a reveal that it's like Lady Gaga as in the other. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like it could have gone that route and it didn't, and I appreciated that. Well, it was never that, but it was a different ending. Oh, here we go.

Oh, let's hear it. We've thrown the praise at him, now let's hear his here we go. Let's hear it. We've thrown the praise at him. Now let's hear his terrible first instincts. Spill the tea. Get ready for the horrible ending. Because I wouldn't have written something where it's like, they hold hands and walk off.

The end. OK, all right, so I'm giving you a lot of credit for the sincerity. I know. No, I feel like that wasn't our job at SNL. But they get into a pretty sexual furry relationship. And there's a scene in the alley where he undoes the frog's bra thing under the bleachers.

The audience had cheered so hard when they walked out holding hands, and then this added minute, Lauren just looked over at me and was like, do you think maybe the ending was that last part? And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. Oh my God, I wanna see that so bad. I can't believe I have no memory of this

and I'm sitting here praising you for your restraint. Yeah, no, there wasn't restraint. I was like, we gotta get a laugh at the end. So good. Wow. Well, there you go, margins, man. It comes back to Sudeikis and there's something where they're like, so you guys are fucking though? Yeah, there you go. Margins, man. It comes back to Sudeikis and there's something where they're like, so you guys are fucking though? Yeah, we're fucking.

There it is. That was all just met with silence. The magic of editing. Yeah, people like sincere. I wrote an episode of a documentary now called Globesman. It was based on Salesman. And the original ending was Fred and Bill get into a car and just get T-boned by this rival Atlas salesman. And so it was this real dark ending.

And Bill, I wasn't on set, I was doing my show and they were filming it out in LA. And Bill was like, hey man, Fred's playing it really sad because they were getting T-boned right after Fred had like a minor victory and he's like, I think people are going to be super bummed out if it ends with him dying. And it was the same thing, like I didn't have the confidence to just let it end nice. Yeah.

And it was, thank God for Bill's good instincts because it is the way it ends now. I love, and it's so crazy. I also think probably somebody was like, can you call Seth so we don't have to have a car accident? Oh, yeah. Our day is done if we don't have to do that. Yeah, I mean, it's also because if it isn't quite right and you're like, they look off into the sunset, a tear rolls down their cheek in a comedy setting,

you can get crucified. Oh, yeah. Like, the audience and your friends will talk about it forever. I mean, you're like, that one for some reason doesn't work and you text your friends about it. Yeah. You never wanna be the one who got texted about.

I think it helps that you tried the other. So you at least know. Yeah. Even if you got burned by your friends. Yeah. Well, even though like your friends are like, what was that? You're like, ah, Lauren wouldn't let me do the furry stuff.

But he was blushing. But it was one of those that was so different. I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong, it got really good feedback, right? People really liked it. Yeah, I think generally it did. Like I say, I felt when I rewatched it, like the audience wasn't going crazy.

But I think people around the building were nice about it. Can I ask a nerdy question, which is what did you guys shoot on? Because what I also like about it is it has a different quality. As in the quality of the film is less than the show, which is nice because it actually stands out as it's on. But you're not shooting on film or anything, right? What were you guys shooting on? It it wasn't film I don't know if

it was reds or whatever but uh what I loved was that there were obviously no lights ever and just relying on those like humongous building sized billboards that'll go from white to black as they're flashing different ads made for this like moody weird lighting. I mean, and Matt and Oz were utilizing it well, but it was kind of a lot of found cool shots because of the crazy lighting of that place at night.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. It just makes it stand out immediately. Totally. Completely to show your range here. So first of all, then I know there's a real burn on Yoram and my other two co-hosts. Oh, fuck. They just fully,ne was like, yeah, you can put a Mike O'Brien film up there. Here it comes. Oh yeah. It was okay for anybody else. It was so funny. Lorne held the line so hard on Digital Short, then he's like, call it what you want. Sure. Yeah. It's 2009. And then yeah, that's the one we hold up the highest is Lonely Island.

Everyone knows that term. No one says like, oh, are you the guy behind Michael Bryan pictures? If that even was what the thing was, but I also would be remiss if I didn't say, what's your go-to, Seth, that you're trying to lose the expression. Oh yeah, I should know. Yeah, I'm gonna try to make mine. I'd be remiss if I didn't say,

it was very cringy whenever anyone, once I did a couple would say anything about Lonely Island and that I was like, this is not going to be Lonely Island. I can't do Lonely Island. They did 110, 120 amazing shorts. They have musical talent, they have rhythm, they're funny, please don't.

Yeah, they were more like, these might be Albert Brooksie or something. Yeah, I don't know. I don't. Yeah, they were more like these might be Albert Brooksie or something. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about the musical talent because this segways really nicely into the Jay-Z short. Support for the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast comes from Airbnb. Hey, there, Yoram. Hi. You love cool stuff.

Oh my god, I can't. It's like my fave. Yeah. And you know, sometimes when you go to one of our great cities of the world. Sure. You might end up in a touristy area and shout out to tourists. I'm not looking down my nose. Sure. But you like to plug in to the parts of the city, the beating heart as you like to say, of where the locals live. Beating heart. I like authentic experiences. I like local food or comida, depending on which part of the world you're in.

Yeah, I like all that shit. Well, I have good news, because that is what Airbnb provides to you, Yorm. You don't have to stay in a hotel where the other tourists are convening. You can find your way into a local neighborhood that you otherwise maybe would never step foot in, one of those neighborhoods that doesn't have a big old hotel,

but rather just an apartment where some people live and now are being kind enough to let you stay. So anyway, I feel like you get this. You're a smart guy. I don't have to keep saying it. You're speaking mi langwe. Thanks to Airbnb for sponsoring the pod and do check it out. Yeah. Support comes from Shopify. Hey, Yorm. Yes.

You know, sometimes it's not enough to have a great product. You gotta have somebody who helps you sell that product to people. Yes, and so glad you brought this up, Seth, because I'm developing antique coins. You would take pictures of them and then sell them like baseball cards with stats and all that sort of stuff.

So you sell the cards, but not the actual coins. And I think it's a great idea for a business. Okay. Now that actually might be one of the few products that Shopify can't help with, but Shopify can help with products like Allbirds or Untuckit, Skims. When you think about a great product, a cool brand, brilliant marketing, the often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling and for shoppers buying symbol. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. It's home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not so

secret secret was ShopPay. It boosts conversions up to 50%. One more time, we've tried this before. What do you think that means? That it boosts conversions 50%, Yor? It boosts it half of 100%, which is great. You're like the beautiful mind guy of this podcast. The amazing way you just like process math so quickly. Thanks. Thank you. What that means actually, Yor, is that less carts go abandoned and more sales go forward. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform, better be ready to sell

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to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash Lonely Island. Tell me one more time. So it's a coin, it's a picture of a coin. It's a picture of a series of coins, different kinds of coins, and then it would have stats. The Jay-Z one. I had a really funny thing,

which is the first time I went looking for this today on YouTube, I wrote Mike O'Brien. And I think the third option was Jay-Z. Then later I accidentally went and looked for it and I wrote Jay-Z first and your name does not pop up. Whoa, weird. If you go Jay-Z first, it turns out Jay-Z, Mike O'Brien is not in the story, but Michael

Ryan Jay-Z is like the third year. You're saying I might be benefiting more from the relationship than he is? I don't know. It's hard to say. All right. So it's the Jay-Z story and you play Jay-Z and I have so many things to say about it, but first just talk about where this one came from. Oh, I don't really know.

I think the general feeling that I felt on the show, like I was bad at the show in my first year on the cast, and that I can't do impressions, I can't sing all these things that I was seeing all the people around me do really well. I can't do, and it was almost like, just make that the joke. I feel like Andy doing impressions next to Hader early in his time might be the same move of like, fuck it, just yeah, look, I can't, I can't.

Do it with a smile. But it was fascinating to watch the audience process this because first it's beautifully shot. Yeah. I mean, beautiful black and white, and it's the Jay-Z story, and then the first reveal is that you're Jay-Z. There's a fear, I think, because the worst thing that could happen is you're doing an impression.

We don't want to actually hear you do an impression of Jay-Z, which you quickly don't do. You're absolutely playing it like yourself, but you're not even saying things Jay-Z would say. You're super earnest and really sweet. This is the definitive, fully accurate biopic that is the final word on the subject. This is the Jay-Z Story with Michael Bryan as Jay-Z. Cocaine? Cocaine for sale. Cocaine, want to buy some cocaine? Hello, walk right by me. Hey, you seem a little down.

What's on your mind, man? I think I might try to stop selling cocaine. Do what? I think I might try to be a rapper. The amount of fact checking that went on during that, like crew members coming up to me and saying his first album wasn't the black album. And I'm like, I know that. This is not a good biopic. Also, it was thrust upon J.K. Simmons. It had been to the table many times and did well but wasn't picked for whatever reasons. Then Lorne was just like, just shoot it on Tuesday with J.K. Simmons.

He walked into this world and was like, you're Jay-Z. I was like, yeah. He goes, and I'm Nas. He had never heard the laughs that had gotten at Taylor Rees. He goes, and is it a problem that I don't know who the fuck Nas is? And I said, nope. No, it's much better. That's way better.

Yeah, that's perfect. I forget that like you had to bring these to table because that was one of the advantages that we had is that because we had sort of gotten the first few and Lazy Sunday in particular under the radar, we just started to not have to bring anything to table ever. The idea of having to read, some of these must have been hard to get by because obviously with a lot of our stuff, the visuals don't necessarily, you don't quite get the concept if you just read it out loud.

Or is it harder for, I mean, that's a harder road to hoe for sure. I think so sometimes because yeah, it would be Lauren reading pages and pages of silent words, stage directions. If the mouse goes up to a couple, he tries to get them to take a photo of him, but instead they want him to take a photo, you know, but there was one or two times where they got like championed.

You know how like hater during this era, like a Leslie would get behind a sketch and almost like get the room going? Yeah. And one or two may have gotten over the hump because of that. Oh man, yeah, the way Hader would laugh occasionally when he liked something was so infectious. Yeah.

Just that giggle monster. Yeah. Hader had put a lot of shoe leather into having taste. And I think late in his time, Lauren had a lot of respect for haters' taste. Yeah. So if hater was laughing louder than other people, it was almost extra cool points, I think.

Yeah, I think that's right. And but he would even like slap the table just like waking up the hair department or whatever. Like it was great. Yeah, it's so like. It's also a very funny tone for the Jay-Z story, which is everybody in it is really sweet and encouraging. Yeah. And I don't even know what your archetype is in this sketch,

because you're not even like a basic white guy. It's almost like, I don't know, like a movie about a teenage girl. Like it's such a weird. Yeah, you're bashful. You're really bashful. Right. Bashful. You're on the cover of like a made up rap magazine and you just like clutch it to your chest and fall back on a couch and kick your feet. Which is called Awesome Rappers. I mean, the cover of Awesome Rappers magazine. I mean, I guess this is sort of a breakthrough moment for me because in my mind, I'm a version of myself,

like which maybe my inner persona is a teenage girl. Yeah, just blushing. Because I'm just like, what if someone handed me a magazine and I was on the cover, I might be like giddy. There's really fun moments where you ask how to get home and somebody says you can take the J or the Z. Classic. Yeah.

I think I read that that is rumored to be how he got his name and it's incorrect, so we put it in. I should head back to Marcy projects. You know what trains are around here? You should take the J or the Z. You just gave me an idea about what my fake name could be, you son of a gun. I love that people corrected you, but I think that is because you constantly say that it's all totally accurate.

Right, yeah. And then I did have to rap by speaking to what you were saying, Yoruma, and that was hell. Really good. They had me come back, I kept getting a text like hey, can you swing back again and They'd be like, can you just do it again? It's not it's not on the beat. It's not No, he's saying I'm so humble and I got to the top because of luck and And all that but but I had to redo that I think with Eli at that time and and he was like, okay I'm gonna play it again. I'm going to point to you when you start.

It's so much sadder when you're dealing with like a really accomplished musician who like, this is so basic, like just trying to get on the bar. Yeah. Yeah. I was editing and I couldn't get you on beat. We, I forget the Prince song, Let's Go Crazy maybe. There was a network wide promo where they had all the talent on the network sing like Let's Go Crazy maybe. There was a network-wide promo where they had all the talent on the network sing one line of that song and Spike Lee directed it.

Spike Lee came to my studio, Studio HG and I was like, look, I'm just real bad at singing. I'm just going to tell you right now. He's like, don't worry. I know how to get this. I've gotten it from a lot. Everybody tells me that. We did it for like an hour and then he walked over, he's like, don't worry, I know how to get this. I've gotten it from a lot. Everybody tells me that, fine. And we did it for like an hour. And then he walked over, he's like, we couldn't do it.

He really looked at me, he's like, you were right. He goes, you wanna just shake your shoulders a little bit? We'll probably go with that. Oh man. He gave you like peanut butter, like they give to dogs to make your mouth move. Mr. Ed, stop. But it was really sweet about it,

because he was like, you know what? I thank you for your honesty early on. I should have listened to you. Yeah. Oh, my God. At least you got it from the best. That's very exciting. I know. Yeah. There's a very fun casting move,

which is Beyoncé comes in, played by Sashir, which then establishes, at least in my mind, when I was watching it, oh, Mike's the only one who's going to be a white person playing anybody in the story. Then you go talking to Kanye, and then we reveal it's Sudeikis. Yeah.

And then you guys have a very sweet scene where Kanye tells Jay-Z he also wants to be a rapper, and you're incredibly encouraging. You've been making some fantastic beats for me lately, Kanye. Oh, thank you. Hey, where do you see yourself in five years? I want to be a rapper. Like you. I think that, um...

could be amazing. Holy guacamole. Oh, man, you had me so nervous. I didn't know how you would respond to that. I didn't know if you'd think, Kanye, look at me. Your brain works like no one's I've ever met, truly. It's so funny. It's so well-acted.

Was the Sashir thing laid in as a misdirector? Or was it just, she's really good as Beyonce? I know, and she's got like the fan effect. I think it was of course longer than, all these are so much longer than Lonely Island videos, but there were other beats. He goes to Annie and he's like, oh my gosh, this Hard Knock Life song could actually be a rap

and people are like, no, that's impossible. So everything was gonna be accurate except Kanye was the only other one. And then Nas got added in and other beats got cut to give the host something to do. And so then it became almost like, well now more than half the world are white guys. So, but that wasn't exactly planned.

I will say if Beyonce had also been white, it feels like a different sketch. Right. Like it happily kind of grounds it back to the world. Yeah, that's interesting. With it being Seshir. There's also of course the really funny thing, which I mean, it made my favorite part is that Jay Farrow's in this, and Jay has a lights-out Jay-Z impression.

Yeah. And Jay must have been sitting there just wondering what had gone wrong, that he was playing Jay-Z's friend and you were the one playing Jay-Z. Yeah. And he pitches me the song, Empire State of Mind, doing a great Jay-Z. And I think he'd done it on the show.

Yeah, he'd done Jay-Z at that point. So it was, at least he didn't have to think, oh, now Mike's the Jay-Z now. Right, right. And then, by the way, jump forward to the 40th, Leslie Jones, who knows Jay-Z, saw me and him in proximity and was like, oh, this is going to happen. And I was like, I don't know, I don't know.

And she made me go up and talk to him. And it became clear, but it took me way too long to understand this, that he had never seen the video. Yeah. I assumed it not because I thought it was so amazing, but like assistants and people almost always show the person. Like, they're like, hey, there's a thing that literally was shot where you grew up and stuff like Marcy projects and stuff and he just I said I think Leslie wants me to say, you know, I'm the guy

I'm that I played you, you know And he just was kind of blank stare scanning the room for anyone else to talk to you and just kept going It's all good, man. It's all good. And then Ariana Grande. I mean, to defend the man, if he hadn't seen it, what a weird moment. I replayed it and he's like, I have no idea what that was, but he probably has psychopaths come up to him once a day and say something like that. Right.

You and me, we're the same. But also a guy who looks like you being like, I played you. It doesn't even make sense. You're like, well, okay. I told the fact that Leslie set it up like it was a big moment. I do worry that you walked over with a little bit like, it's finally happening. Oh, 100%. The big moment we've both been waiting for.

Give me a hug, come on. Water under the bridge. No beef, no beef, no beef, man. Did you ever get the sense that after it aired, that J.K. Simmons appreciated it? Did you ever get any feedback from him? I don't remember talking to him at the after party, but I'll say that that was the only one where I got

what the Lonely Island got for five years, which was for a couple weeks, hosts came in saying they wanted to do something. Oh, nice. Gotcha. And one of them that I'll obviously leave unnamed said, what if you and I are NWA? And it was like the next week. And I was like, well, that feels similar.

But I was like, I think that's too soon, too close. But then there were general other ones, like the Michael Keaton short happened because he came in and said, I'll do a short with the Jay-Z guy, which was cool. Oh, great. That's very cool. It's one of my favorites.

And again, Michael Keaton, there's very few actors I like more than Michael Keaton. Yeah. So this is Prom King and you're both so good in it. Yeah. He's like a top tenor for me as well. And for Andy to not be on here when there's an organic Beetlejuice Avenue exit ramp. But yeah, we of course got him from midnight

till 4 a.m. Friday night. Should I do it? Should I be the guy who does Beetlejuice? Oh, I don't know. I think maybe. Oh, I don't know, same words. I love it. This podcast is legally obligated to do it.

I mean, I already took his sweet as chef, so I feel like, you know, might as well be the Beetlejuice guy now. Yeah. I'm gonna get married. Oh, I was back, so why is he back? Yeah, so anyway. So it was this, maybe this is still the case, but a crazy time on the show where the host

would usually have to shoot three or four videos on Friday. It was crazy. I think it's worse. I mean not worse is the wrong word, but I think it is as taxing if not more taxing now. It's insane. They handed us this American icon at midnight and he was just broken and we were just about to start shooting and of course we didn't get him till four and so the thing we had to cut from prom queen was the prom. He cut the whole prom. I'm gonna say something. Yeah, I kind of love that it's not there.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember if there was like jokes. I loved it and there whatever but watching it already again, it's too long. And it's fine with it just going like and he won anyone. So who cares? Yeah, the trope is that teen movie where the super cool guy says, I will make a girl who is unexpected, I will bring her to prom, she will win the prom queen.

But it is a cruel bet that he makes with a friend. In this case, it's really nice because Pete doesn't pick the nerdy teacher, he points to Kate and you just misunderstand who he's pointing to. Yeah. Kate is set up very clearly to be a taming of the shrew or whatever. Yeah. She's got headgear and everything.

A big old headgear and a move of moving the pencil within the body of the headgear. Yeah. She had one line in it and got like four laughs. It's amazing. Yeah. I remembered she had a line and watching it again, which is, you don't realize she's still in the room and Keaton looks down and she's just still there. Sure.

I suppose I'd be all right. Right? Yeah, great. Oh, all right. My next class is in here. My next class is in here. And this was, I mean, I did this as a 10 minute play at a place called Stage Left in Chicago. This was late in the game and I was still like, let's bring theater to SNL. Hence the having to cut it down a lot.

But that was from that too. And I think it was something to do with having the blocking of it. And I was like, just say your next class is in there. He's so good in it. Yeah. Vanessa is so good in it. Yeah. You do get a sense that there's not a lot of excitement in his life. Yeah. She's she's hitting the sack at like seven thirty. She's going to do her vix.

And she's just the line readings from Vanessa are so dead. I was so impressed when I watched it this morning at a look she gives when she's leaving the room that's really quick. And it's like a little like, what the hell is this tutoring session? Like she kind of senses it. She still goes off to bed and It doesn't become a story. But there's a tiny look from Vanessa that is really like says a ton where she's like, well, we have a dead marriage, but I don't know that I love this. And it's amazing.

She does come around. She does want him to go to the prom. I mean, she doesn't quite know the stakes, but she does support him. It's really lovely. And I will say another one that it sort of does end sweetly. There's no like furries fucking in an alley. Well, there is a longer version at dress where, no. No. We get into a big teddy bear costumes and fuck. Keaton, he brings so much integrity to it. It's so funny for you to say how tired he was

because of course you don't see it. And man, it really goes back to how hard that show works its hosts. Oh, it's crazy. And yeah, we got him, I think to like 3.30, he got in the car probably. But yeah, he, another thing that I like that we didn't do was that we had a kiss in the rain.

And he's like, I don't think we need it. I don't remember if he said this, but it's that thing I feel like you the rain and he's like, I don't think we need it. I don't remember if he said this, but it's that thing I feel like you guys have talked about of like, what is the laugh based on? And he's like, tell you what, let's do it. But if you want my vote, when you get into the edit, look at not having it.

So I got to kiss Michael Keaton five times and then agreed with him and took it out. They'll never take those kisses away. No. You got this. Only we know about that now. Stored in the bank. I think the synesthetics were right. I liked Nazi and the Proms. I liked how just happy he looked to have the crown. Yeah. It was happy. Yeah. It was good. I think he's one of the first, because that's pretty soon after I left.

He was the first, like really, I felt the ache in my bones of like, ah, I can't believe I didn't get to write for Keaton. And I bring this up because after you had left, I remember one time we were sitting in Higgins office, and I won't name names, but all anybody was doing was complaining about the host. And it was like a real moment of wisdom, where you said these are the ones you're going to talk about with everybody here, like 20 years from now. Nobody remembers anything but the absolute disasters. And it was really, it was like such a nice moment because I was like, oh,

you're right. This is the one that they're going to laugh about. We still, when you get together with people, Tim Robinson, who by the way, this is late in the game to be mentioning, he co-wrote a lot of the videos that we're talking about. But when I see him, we talk about the same five weeks. So you never go like the example I feel like you and I always use is, remember when Paul Rudd hosted the second time and it was super smooth and Paul was great? Yeah.

Yeah. What are you talking about? I mean, you're happy to see Paul out because of how smooth it was. Yeah. But like the fun stories are, it was like you said it in the way that in the movie Parenthood, remember when the grandmother like makes some speech that like kind of grounds everybody in the world. Like I can't quite remember.

I think it's something about a merry-go-round, but it was a real, everybody got quiet while you're like, don't you see? These are the moments. And now I must go. Yeah, I'd been, I think I'd been in LA for six months. And then when you go back and you're so excited to be back and be like, what are the bits this week? And, and everyone's like, we're furious.

And you're like, whoa, why are you mad? Life is great and SNL's the best. Yeah, it's true. You're like, there's no other place like this. And the fact that you can do bits about an impossible host is one of the gifts. I do think Timmy was always on the side of this is hilarious. Timmy was never in a bad mood. I remember saying, is the host as bad as everybody says?

And he's like, oh, it's the worst. Oh my God. Okay. So speaking of this and coming back to SNL after however many years it was, and you and Tim, Brian, you were in your office, and I, for some reason, nobody else was on the floor. I don't know what you guys were doing, but you were dressed up as this character.

I came in and you guys were having such a fucking blast, and it just reminded me of all my favorite moments at the show, but you were wearing this giant coat, and I can't remember what you were doing, but was there a character that you were playing just in your office? Well, I was a character for most of that final year. I was.

Yes. I claimed that the reason I'd been taken out of the live cast was that Lorne found out my age, and he was mad that I was old and that he screamed, at least start fucking acting and dressing young and get a fucking nickname. And then, and so I was Obi and I bought all this hip hop clothing. But I remember that moment too, because Tim loves ripping on I have bunions, so I wear wide shoes and I was wearing merrells. And he was like, one thing Obie can't be cool about, though, is his wide merrells. And do you remember what you said right away?

You're like, we made sure MacGruber always had merrells because we thought they were so dumb. It was the first shoe selection right out of the gate. I forgot about Obie. That was a real I still had enough friends at the show that I right out of the gate. I forgot about Obi. That was a real, I still had enough friends at the show that I could go back and visit. It's not by the way, I think people would be very polite if I stopped by, but it wasn't instant bits.

But I remember showing up and Timmy, almost with tears in his eyes, explaining how you're now Obi and you were young clothes, and how happy it made him. How absurd it was like sitting in the pitch room. It was always, that was the time it was, I had to really kind of like steal myself because wandering around or just writing with one person and like who cares that you have a sideways baseball cap on.

But sitting down in the room and I was at that point sitting like right next to Lorne and he never would acknowledge it. He'd just be like, how was your Sunday? And we'd talk with me having a sideways baseball cap on. And he did not know the bit, correct? I don't think so, no. I would have been happy to tell him it, but I don't remember ever doing that.

Oh, I did not know that you did it everywhere. That's great. So Lorne spent a whole year where you, for no reason, or certainly for no reason he knew, were all of a sudden dressing young. Yes. I think that speaks to the kind of people Lauren has worked with over 50 years,

where he's like, I'm just gonna let it go. Wait, how often do you think he was like, I made a huge mistake, he should be on the cast. He's so young. He's so dope. I'm gonna say zero. Support for the Lonely Island comes from Thrive Market. Hello, Yorm.

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mango jerky, it's mostly jerky's now that I'm saying it out loud. You got to take care of those calves, Seth. Exactly. So here's the thing, raising a family today feels like navigating a maze of unhealthy options between hidden sugars, artificial ingredients, misleading labels. It's hard to know what's actually good for kids. That's why, as I've established, I love Thrive Market. It's like having a personal guide to healthier living for my and Yorma's entire family. It's not Andy's, Andy's family. He's like, shit.

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Andy makes one more time when he feeds his kids. Ah! Don't make that noise, guys. Go get Thrive. I will say, Prom King, you have a super stupid cool guy haircut that works very well. Yeah, this is, now we're hitting the Timmy stuff,

but one of his favorite things is SNL 34 year olds playing high schoolers, which happens every week. Every week they're like, if you throw a striped shirt and backwards baseball hat on Mikey Day, he's 14. And it's just the nature of sketch comedy, but it looks so dumb. And me sitting next to what 23 23-year-old Pete Davidson also makes it stand out and a bunch of other like teenagers. And I mean, we have a joke in there where I'm a six-year senior,

but I'm clearly 34 or whatever I was. It's so funny because Mikey Day, absolutely they pass him for 14 and SNL all the time. And yet if it was like one of those Netflix documentaries about a 35-year-old who tricks his way back in the high school, you feel like they would catch him halfway through the first period. Yeah. Right away, they're like,

no dude, you're a cop. You're clearly a cop. It was after we did Hot Rod, I remember having a conversation with Lauren and it was sort of about like, it didn't do as well as we had expected it to do. Those projections were a little off. And at one point he did say, he was like, well, you know, in a normal movie,

you would have been played by a 14-year-old boy. Yeah. Exactly. I was in stripes the whole time. Yeah, they tried to stripe you down, but it just didn't work. Yeah, it's time to strike me down. All right, Grow a Guy. One of my all-time favorites. I never tire of trying to shut me down. All right, Grow a Guy. One of my all time favorites.

I never tire of watching it. So good. It's absolutely fantastic. Do you want to lay out the premise or how you came up with this one? Yeah, I think this one was cause my college housemate, Fred, had sea monkeys. Did you guys have these?

Yeah, I mean, not in college. As a small child. But for people who don't know it, they're like a powder you buy out of the back of a comic book or something. And when you put it in water, they come to life, they're like little brine shrimp or whatever.

But I was like, how is that a living thing? And what if someone doesn't buy the package? Does that thing never live? So the premise is that there's a guy, and by the way, this is one of my favorite Beck performances ever. It's unbelievable. Beck Bennett. It's unbelievable. Oh, it's wonderful. Beck being a jockey jerk is always my favorite. Yeah. He tapped into some kind of like awful Naperville guy he knew growing up, I think, or something. And we're all hanging out and you can tell he

just hates me. I'm kind of the quieter, nerdier guy in the group. And he's just kind of staring at me as we're all having fun. And then his burn he decides is, do you have any other friends besides us? Which is confusing because he is saying that we are friends, but he knows that a real person should have many groups of friends. And I clearly don't.

And so I noticed in the back of a magazine, you can get a powder where you grow a guy and I grow a fake guy played by James Franco and bring him to show back. And the guy does great. I crash course him in all pop culture and all things to joke about. And he does great until he asks about hashtags,

which are a real thing that were bothering me at the time. That's the best part is he doesn't talk about him in a way that anybody should think he's a growing guy. He just has a kind of a genuine question about it. Hey, what are hashtags? Say that again? No, like I get that there's a flag assertionable term in your tweet, but wouldn't it work just the same

if you didn't put the number symbol there? What? I'm seriously asking you to. It was a valid thing that it was bothering me, and immediately Beck is like, you're a fucking grow-a-guy, I know it. And then everyone starts self-destructing, and it turns out, yeah, spoiler,

everyone's a grow-a-guy, because it became fun to do that blow-up effect. Blow-up effect is great What was the solution that you splattered on people? Was it like applesauce or something? So it's so perfectly gross Yeah oatmeal plus something but yeah, it was some guy with a bucket of it throwing it on the cast members who I mean that's another shout out I have to give although it it's not in this one, but Taron's in so many of these because you're kind of asking a lot to be in shorts. I feel like everyone was excited

to be in Lonely Island shorts because you might be in the next dick in the box, but people weren't banging down the door to be in my shorts. And they're in Brooklyn and it's the night before you're doing a live show and all this. So one person you could always count on

to be like really good in it and never complain and add a little bit more was Taryn. And that's why he's in almost all of them. But yeah, and this one, you know, Beck and Vanessa and Pete and everybody are so good and so sheer and they all had to at some point get stuff splashed on them. And all these little things where you're like,

this isn't even their baby. Yeah, no, my favorite back line is him saying, what, I'm trying to help him. Yeah, I like, I think twice he says, I'm genuinely asking. That genuinely is such a shithead move. Yeah. The other great thing,

because he has all these great line reads, when it's revealed that he's a, he's a girl guy, he basically self-destructs by saying peace, straight to camera. Yeah, he's a grown guy. He basically self-destructs by saying, peace. Straight to camera. Yeah, he's happy about it. He says he's thrilled. He kicks up his legs and says, peace, down the lens, and then blows up.

It made me laugh so hard and was obviously not what I'd pictured. It's also so wonderful that he is a grown guy who has just grown into a dickhead. Right. Yeah. Yeah. To death, to the death.

He's going to take that to the grave. Yeah. Peace. And then Dragon Babies is insane. This is where it gets so specific with me. Like, they just get getting to this one. We're like, oh man, it was like helping you out with any of your album stuff that you're doing or seeing your live one-man show that I saw in LA.

I was just like, the specificity of what you're bringing to this comedy is so, it's so specific. I mean, I know you're Chicago guy, but like this was so specific to me. Also every moment in this, if you stopped it and said to a hundred comedy writers, what happens next? Nobody. Yeah. Now what do you think happens next?

Like there's no way to stay ahead of this one. This one is a truly 50-50 with Tim. And I don't remember how we got to it being an animated, you know, Dragon movie, but cause it started out as a bit, we always talked about writing where for some reason to promote his new show, Dennis Frans is gonna play one play of football in the NFL. It's the star of the brand

new also on the same network, you know, cop show, Dennis Frans is in at safety and then he rushes the passer against the orders of the defensive coordinator and breaks Brady's leg. And then I think it was a lot of post-game interviews or something that Dennis Franz always promoting the show while talking about his one play or whatever. And then I don't know how it got to maybe just Dennis Franz owes, I mean, the director owes him a favor and puts him in as a voice of a little dragon.

And then we dropped the Dennis Franz, but you can tell that that's what we told hair and makeup and cast. I mean, it looks so much like Dennis Frons. Oh man, that's great. But I will say, as sad as I am not to have it be Dennis Frons, the fact that you play someone who looks just like Dennis Frons

and your name is Rick Shoulders. Yeah, Bibo is voiced by retired Chicago police officer, Rick Shoulders. So... It's always been my dream to do voiceover work, so after I retired in 09, I headed to Tinseltown to try my luck. We need a fire to stay warm. Bibo, can you try to breathe fire?

No, shut up. I can't do it. You just have to believe. Yeah, no, I know I gotta believe in myself, but I don't yet, you know, there's the rub, you know? Hmm! Well, Rick cut me off a lot, and cleared his throat in almost every take. It's gonna be a little hard to animate around all that coughing. Just take a moment now to get that out of your system.

Oh! I feel like this is an experience I had 12 times or whatever many videos there are that Lonely Island never maybe had Which is every host was like what the fuck is going on? Because this also wasn't at the table for Charlize we read it like six months earlier giving it to an animation studio, and then they're like it's ready to go now and happens to be Charlize and They're like Charlize go over here, and now you like this guy.

And say these, and they're always like, I'm just gonna do two of these, I don't know what this is, I don't like this. It's lame. Yeah, I'd rather not. We were thrilled to have Charlize Theron involved. She's playing May Showers, the candy witch. Working with Thrick Shoulders was a dream.

So many actors are fake, but he's real. Who knows, maybe in a parallel universe a guy like Rick goes for a girl like me. Again though, tribute to what a wonderful actor she is. She's fantastic at it. Oh, she's so good. Watching it, you would even say, oh, I bet she fought for this one.

Oh yeah, no, she did not. She, I wouldn't say she fought against it But it wasn't at the table read or anything. She just was yeah lightly confused fairly So yeah, it did give me a little bit of the harkening back to to seven minutes in heaven series that you did I'm just like Putting putting attractive ladies in the position of being like I like that guy The pure comedy of them saying I'm into that guy. But yeah, and Taryn's great.

Cecily's great. It's got a lot of fun performances in it. Also, the logic of it is all over the place. It does seem like they have had to animate the movie based on lines that you said that were not in the script. Right. There's a moment the Dragon Babies are talking about who got what sandwich, and we see it's you and Cecily is your wife. And then they left that in, yeah, a lot of crazy logic.

He kind of yes-ands the fact that his dragon finally breathes fire by shooting a gun into the floor of the studio, accidentally killing another person. Yeah, you feel as though you're trying to build in a empathy for this guy who's maybe a little over his skis as far as doing voiceover work, but then he admits that the two worst days of his life were getting cut from Madagascar,

and then at time he thought somebody had a gun and then shot him 10 times. Yeah. And the audience, you can tell the audience has a real, oh, yeah. Yeah. Not sure where we're supposed to stand on Rick's shoulders.

The fact that I don't remember how we got into this, I wonder if there was more of an explanation ever of how he got the Madagascar, because this was his, he was the AA sponsor for Taron. So how did he get that other one? But he said he got fired on the first day. So whatever, however he got it, they immediately were like, oh, whoops, no, no, no. Right.

He's also still dressed, I think, in his cop, like windbreaker, trying very hard. How did the animation thing work? Cause we were never able to like access that part of SNL, like who did it and how long did it take? Like, I mean, it's really, it's good. It's really good. And it was some outside thing. And so this was like a little bit of a coup where I think it did fine at the table. I don't remember but

Probably like Eric Kenward or someone was like well Let's kind of start to figure out if the animation would work or whatever and didn't get the proper Wednesday night picked They just got the wheels in motion and then it truly was like six months later, I'd forgotten about it. And they came back to me and Tim and they were like, OK, we have that animation done. And so then someone must have gone to Lauren been like, hey, there's a sketch that's done that's a wow. Yeah, it was it was backdoored in a way. Oh, gosh, I thought like I was like, did they do this in a week? This is fucking phenomenally difficult to like do it to do in that

Timeframe would be crazy. So that makes more sense. It is very funny to think of someone telling Lauren. Hey, so We spent a fortune on this animation and good news. It's on this week and then it starts with you as Rick shoulders Great that was another thing He was always like, you know wants first first year cast members to not have super heavy disguises because you're trying to get to know them and everything. So yeah, he's like, oh great, a heavily disguised first year cast member and a thing that wasn't at the table as Charlize has got probably a great show. But yeah, they let it on.

Fantastic. Bill probably laughed really hard at the table. Yeah, that probably got it on. Fantastic. Bill probably laughed really hard at the table. Yeah, that probably got it through. Only because Yoram mentioned it, and I feel as though people are gonna have a fair amount of homework after listening to this podcast. But Seven Minutes in Heaven, how many episodes of that did you do?

Around 40. Oh my God. I did an episode. Did you do an episode, Yoram? Were you a guest? No, I'm not that cool. Never got Yoram, I got Seth. Yeah, lots of fun people from our world.

We did an interview in a closet, and it was very close and uncomfortable and a lot of fun. Yeah, and we were all genuinely alone in the closet for each episode. They'd close the door and there were little cameras on tripods or whatever. Hi, this is 7 Minutes in Heaven with Mike O'Brien. I'm here today with Andy Samberg.

What's up, Andy? We're here. And we're homies. And I know this guy, so we're today with Andy Samberg. Woo! What's up Andy? We're here! And we're homies. Yep. And we're gonna make it out of the park. I know this guy so we're pretty cocky about this. Everything's gonna work out.

Woo! Oh man, watch your back everybody. Here we go! Uh, I forgot my first question. Yeah. So Andy, are these new glasses? They are, yeah. I just got them.

Do you like them? I've got a couple other Lonely Island adjacent recommendations that we don't need to discuss, but Yoruma did all the voiceovers in the Underground festivals. Yeah. And that always helped sell them at the table and sounded great. And those are very fun, silly, saddacus and Nassim. Stank Mouth Soda presents the Underground Rock Minute, bringing you all the latest

in Underground Rock and Rap. Oh, the only thing I truly am able to enjoy watching of my own stuff when I look back is called we're going to make technology hump. Out of the best. Yeah, love that. And I think part of it is that no one

ever talks about it or has ever high-fived me about it. And I'm like, these are good. And part of it is Andy and the host are, oh, there's two. And he's so good. He's like so chipper that it makes it, I don't know, it has no context. They're a show that makes technology items hump. And then people are mad that they're doing long vignettes

before they hump. Get a load of that. Hey, we've got some viewer e-mails. Ryan from Sacramento says, we don't want your dumbass soap opera scene. Just show clean close-up shots of tech humping. Call me a hopeless romantic, but this lady needs a little dialogue before the action.

I hear that. Now, for our third tech hump, Colleen and I are going to be a GPS nav screen and a curling iron. That's the only one I can watch and not go like, oh, why didn't we? Oh, interesting. So Underground Festival, because those, I will say, love going back and watching.

One of the most fun things to pitch on at the rewrite table, because it was just a bucket of insanity. Just anything. Those I see trims and stuff, and I just mean technology is, it feels okay. But yeah, those were with Jost and those were the most fun to write. We did like seven.

Lauren hated them by the end, I think, rightfully so. But they were so easy. Jost would finish all his real work and come and kind of sleep on my couch in my office and like wake up every 10 minutes and go like, "'Barney the dinosaur, shoot you with a BB gun." And go back to sleep and I type that in. This was based off the Juggalos.

Yes. Yeah. They had insane videos. And you did go to one of those? I did, I went with my friend Brad Morris and it was horrifying and we went dressed in like khakis and golf shirts intentionally. We were like being dorks and shooting a video and Brad got punched in the nuts and it was, everyone is on meth.

It's- Oh God, that's, I mean, but that's an experience though. You know what I mean, in that same way that you're like the bad times are the ones you remember. Yeah, juggalos icp. Yeah, they a representative for icp picked us up in a golf cart. And she was like, you want to go meet the boys? And we're like, Yeah, sure. And then she got a walkie talkie call. And she's like, fuck, they can't meet you guys right now. And she turned and went to a warehouse

and like unlocked the door and it was just tables of Insane Clown Posse sweatshirts and stuff, as far as the eye could see. She goes, go nuts, take whatever you want. And we're like, well, I don't need like a basketball jersey that says Insane Clown Posse. But that would have been good gifts for everyone at SNL though. It's true. You know, like all your comedy friends.

I grabbed a hoodie that I think Obi wore a lot. But yeah. Yeah, that did come in handy later. I will say that voice that like, Sunday, hey, kind of, you know, everything's on fire is now used on Seth's show all the time. And I don't do the voice. What's up with that, Seth? Yeah.

It's very fair. We should have used you for your burnt. I guess one of the reasons would be, Yoram, you just really a lot of times I'm like, be here at 11 and you're like Pacific Standard or Eastern. I'm a lot. You do the opposite of the one I tell you. Then one last plug for Mike. Mike created a show called AP Bio that was on NBC and Peacock,

but now is on Netflix and the world is seeing it in a way that it has not seen it before. And it's really a great show. And Mike, will you tell the story about when you came to the MacGruber premiere? Because I remember thinking that that was the funniest. It was basically not much story here, but AP Bio had just been canceled from Peacock after four seasons. They said they didn't have the budget for our show. And then the premiere of MacGruber was like the next week and we showed up and there were like five actual helicopters as you walk up the red carpet. You go inside and there were like-

There was a tank. There was a fucking tank. There was a tank they'd gotten his Miata. This is the MacGruber Peacock show. So this is direct competition, right? Yes, yes. Which killed and everybody loved and saw on Peacock. Worth every penny.

I mean, I love the show. The premiere, I was like, this is four AP bio episodes for sure. There was fire everywhere. There were like 150 waiters all dressed as MacGruber. It was so crazy. It's always so funny when whatever you do a show and it's like so hard to make anything. It's always like do more with less money, less time, less like whatever.

And then you get to like the heart to promote it and you're like, where did this money come from? Yeah, like we needed all of this. Yeah. Yeah. But it was great. Yeah. It was a fun premiere. I'm glad that AP Bio is killing on Peacock and MacGruber is people almost know that it exists on Peacock. Well, technically it's killing on Netflix. I'm sorry to say.

Oh, shit. That's even better. It's kind of what McGroover needs. It's a nice bump. And yeah, Seth was an EP and he and Shoemaker were great during that four years. So thank you for that. Of course. Thank you so much for joining us, Mike.

Everybody's homework, obviously. You're gonna wanna watch Grow a Guy, Jay Z Story with Mike O'Brien, Sad Mouse, Prom King with Michael Keaton. There's a bunch of other ones too. Oh, wonderful. Mike O'Brien, Sad Mouse, Prom King with Michael Keaton. There's a bunch of other ones too. Oh, wonderful. Once you start watching Mike O'Brien videos on YouTube, the algorithm will be your friend.

And it's really, they're just great. It was so much fun to go back and watch a bunch of them. Well, thanks for having me. I love the podcast. I've listened to them all. I'll probably skip this one. And it's my Monday morning dog walk thing I look forward to. So thanks for doing it.

Do you feel like there's anything that belongs in the Criterion collection that has not received enough love? Ooh, yeah. Like if you could save a friend. I'd have to look again at what is in, but the one that hit me the hardest, because I wasn't really watching SNL

when I was making art around the clock in Chicago. Art just was taking it out of me. And yeah, you do really lean into it being art. Yeah, yeah, it was truly what no, but there wasn't even DVR then. So I just wasn't home watching it. And I obviously saw like Dick in a Box and on a Boat got through to me. But getting there to SNL and then going back to things was really fun and

sharing an office with Sadekis. He'd be like, watch this one, watch that one. And Hero's Song was my favorite for like a year. And I just didn't see the turn coming and then loved it so much and then would rewatch and rewatch. So I assumed that one was on everybody's list, wasn't it? It did not get the love that you would have thought. I'm surprised that that one, like that mirror for those guys. Yeah. I'm surprised that that one. That one's great, but Hero Song for me, still the comedy of the term.

Yeah. Is my favorite. It's so funny too to compare those two because Mirror is like ringing a sponge out. It's amazing how many moves happened for the fact that it's like sometimes they love this move where people close a cabinet. And hero song is one move and they're like tied. It's just two different ways to do it.

But yeah. One long move. One, yeah, kind of two moves. What if we watch Andy in a tuxedo singing? Might be called its own move, but then kind of one move after that and it's great. It is fun. Like I do think the secret sleight of hand of hero song

is if you have Andy singing with that wig and he is sort of letting you know he's got money, you're all rooting for him to get punched in the face much time. Yeah, yeah, it's perfect. I mean, I was going to say also briefly about you guys not being at the table is that when I was at the show overlapping with you, it made it for a very fun what are they up to buzz around the writers. So like my first week, it was threw it on the ground. And I experienced that for the first time. I remember talking to Hannibal

Burris and he's like, I heard the song and I'm like, oh, it. I remember talking to Hannibal Burris and he's like, I heard the song and I'm like, oh, it's a song and you know, people were like talking about that. It was very fun. Yeah, I've never heard it talked about from that perspective. Like that, yeah, that's kind of cool.

Every time I walked in and you guys played me a song that really made me laugh, it never quite rose to that. I always think that like, I was a real jinx. It was like, it's fine. It's fine. Well, I'll just say I mean with the first time I heard I Wish It Would Rain which we're gonna get to and I keep foreshadowing. I just remember thinking you've done it. It's the best thing I've ever heard. Another good handy singing song. Oh the best. All right Mike we love you buddy. Thank you so much for doing

this. Love you guys. Thanks for having me. This was great. Love you too. It was great seeing you man. Awesome. All right. Bye buddy. Bye guys.