The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast - The Lonely Island Beginnings

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

The Lonely Island and Seth take a journey back in time to discuss the beginning of the digital shorts era and how they got hired on SNL, what Seth remembers about those early days, what it was like writing their first few sketches, and more!Bing Bong BrothersCooper 360 | KatrinaPHOTO: Early days in front of Jorm's mom's house.(Not all the clips we mention are available online. Some of them never even aired.)If you want to see more photos and clips follow us on Instagram @thelonelyislandpod.Sponsors:AirbnbThe Lonely Island Podcast is supported by Airbnb.  Your home might be worth more than you think.  Find out how much at airbnb.com/hostBetterHelpThe Lonely Island Podcast is supported by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/island and get on your way to being your best self. 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

This episode is brought to you by Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Hey everybody, my name is Seth Meyers and it's very exciting. This is the first episode of a new podcast that I'm doing with three very old friends of mine. And earlier today, they sent me this intro

and asked me to read it word for word as they wrote it. In 2005, three gentlemen arrived in New York City, not just to change the fortunes of Saturday Night Live, but to change the course of comedy history. Their names, I'm not going to insult your intelligence. You know their names. But if you just woke up from a 17-year coma, they answer to Andy, Jorma, and Akiva, a.k.a. a.k.a. That's how you wrote it. a.k.a. The Lonely Island. That's how we wrote it.

That's how we wrote it. We don't play by anybody's rules. Thank you for getting it typo correct. It's the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast. So I started SNL in 2001, four very nice years at the show before you guys showed up. And you showed up with a lot of other wonderful people that we'll talk about over the course of this podcast. But I genuinely mean this, I'm being sincere. The tone of the show had a major shift in the right direction and started a really delightful era of the show when you guys showed up.

I agree. And you had a really nice thing going for you. You showed up and you knew each other. Can I just interject before we really get into the meat and potatoes of this? Yeah, but can you just introduce yourself? It's me, Andy Samberg from the lowly island. Okay, great.

Seth Meyers, former cast mate. Thank you. I just want to say before we get going, shouldn't we like celebrate a little that we're starting like a huge podcast together and like hoo-ride a little bit on the M.I.C.? Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's a really good call. We'll add that later. Yeah. It's just nice to see you guys' faces. And then for no one else to see us. You guys don't want to be like, yeah! Well. It's the first podcast!

Yeah! You've had the least enthusiasm for this in all the planning, and now immediately you're coming up. I've never wanted to do this. I'm just saying, now that we're forcing people to listen, should we make it kind of fun? Like, hey, welcome to the party, motherfucker! Yeah! And a who ride? Yeah, we got

a who ride. Yeah, all right. A little bit more morning radio kind of energy. Welcome back to Four Shock Jocks! All right. We should note that we have not figured out the name for this podcast yet, but Jorma is pushing very hard that it should be Four Shock Jocks. I have figured it out.

It's called Four Shock Jocks. Tell us why you like the name. Yeah. Well, Andy, all the other names were taken. It's because this thing plays sound effects. That's why. What is it that you have that plays sound effects? You have it in front of you, too.

It's called the Zoom P4. It's the thing that the podcast company gave us. And Yorm, of course, already figured it out. Me and Akiva did. Oh, man. We all have access to that? Yeah, it's annoying as fuck. Yeah, it's a nightmare.

Now, before we got on here, when we were tech checking, you were mentioning that this felt a lot like Spider-Man the musical. And when they were in kind of previews and figuring stuff out, Seth, and then you were going to tell me something about when you saw Spider-Man the musical before it started. Oh, right. People, this might already be lost to history, but in the early runs of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark, is that what it was called? A lot of Spider-Men were falling from the rafters

and hurting themselves super bad. And living in New York City at the time, that was pretty much all the New York Post was writing about, is how many Spider-Men were falling and hurting themselves. I wrote way too many sketches about it. I was completely enamored with the story that people were hurting themselves, especially just people dressed like Spider-Men hurting themselves in Broadway theaters. I wrote a sketch for Fred called Gublin and Green, where he was a lawyer who only dealt with personal injuries that happened in Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark. And then I got an email that seemed like a joke email that it wasn't.

I got an email from Bono inviting me to, this is not a joke, inviting me to the premiere of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark that said something along the lines of- He wanted you to turn off the jokes. Well, that's what he said. He's like, something along the lines of like, you've had your fun, you've told your jokes, now come see the real thing.

Thinking like, once you see it, you'll understand there's nothing to joke about. Right, because people are genuinely hurting themselves. And then did you go see it? I did, I went to opening night and my memory of opening night of Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark, which I should say went smoothly and none of the Spider-Men, none of the Green Goblins, none of the audience, everybody walked out as they entered. You're saying you went to a Broadway show and there

were zero deaths? There was zero. I mean, I will say half of the audience, and I'm not going to say which half I was in, I think was a little bummed out that nobody fell from the rafters but you guys remember hal wilner rest in peace absolutely incredible snl what was his specific title i don't know what house some version of music music guru music supervisor he was a guy if you needed a sketch scored how had this sort of encyclopedic knowledge of music he was also an incredible record producer he had the coolest friends in the world he was this kind of new york icon who was friends with people from lou reed to jarvis cocker to everybody he was at the opening and i remember his son was sitting directly behind me and his son was maybe eight or nine years old

let's say and the funny thing about spider-manMan as a Broadway musical is it's still got to tell the Spider-Man story. And so Green Goblin, he's singing a song about how he's going to go into this machine to give him superpowers. And what you don't know, if you've never seen anything about Spider-Man, is that he's going to come out and be evil. And he walks into this giant machine and this eight-year-old behind me, Hal's son, just goes, this isn't a good idea. and this eight-year-old behind me, Hal's son, just goes, this isn't a good idea. Destroyed. Everybody within earshot, it was their laugh of the night.

This eight-year-old appreciating that Green Goblin was making a bad decision. Why can't he see that this is going to go bad? He's literally singing a song about power and how much he wants it. Has he not read the Greek myths? After that. Yeah, what happened? Did you make fun of the show again afterwards? Publicly?

Was Bono there? Because it'd be great if he didn't show up. I think Bono was. Bono must have been at opening night. Wasn't one of the give up the spooches about that? Or am I thinking of something else? I do feel like we have to take three giant steps back for our listeners. You don't think that's household name stuff? The very fact that you're referring to the give up the smooches as a recurring thing that an audience.

I don't know what that is. I don't either. Even you guys, two out of three of the Lonely Island don't know what give up the smooches are. Well, yeah, they didn't care for my live stuff. They were just focused on the shorts. Yeah, that's true. This is very true. They only had respect for pre-taped bits.

We were busy. Give Up the Smooch was Andy in a full rigging where he had to hang upside down and come down from the rafters. It was an update feature, right? Yeah, update feature, yeah. Basically, your head was next to mine and you kept trying to get me to kiss you.

Do the upside down smooch. How do we not remember this? You were probably editing. But you were dressed like Spider-Man without the mask. He had the mask, right? And then you pulled it up? Pulled it down to do the smooch. Yeah.

Like Tobey Maguire style. Classic. I didn't know how to title, I guess. It was Seth, give up the smooch. Give up the smooch was your catchphrase in this sketch that required so much rehearsal. I think I wrote it with Rob Klein. In fact, I know I did.

Yeah, you definitely wrote it with Rob Klein. And now it was deeply uncomfortable to hang upside down, correct? Well, yes. The funny thing was I kept writing things for myself where I hung upside down because we did upside down Spider-Man for the Emma Stone monologue as well. And we also did an update feature about the guy who got hung up on the ski lift. Oh, where his pants fell down? Who fell out of the ski lift, but didn't fall down off it. His leg was wrapped around it. So basically, me and Klein kept writing stuff for me to be upside down.

But every time we did it, they would always send me up like 10 minutes before the thing. So I'd be upside down listening to you guys doing, listening to you mostly, doing update jokes. And by the time they lowered me down, all the blood had like rushed into my head. So my face was like engorged. And by the time the feature was over, they'd bring me back down and my eyes would have like capillaries exploded all in them.

And in the next sketch, I would look like I was like on meth. You remember too how Ken Amon would always tell you that whenever anybody had to be rigged on the show Upside Down it was like the Flying Walendas. It was like

a famous family that did the rigging for every Broadway show. Oh, leave it to Ken to reference that. It was like this is showbiz history, Pally.

Also, by the way, you think it's bad for you. It was not my favorite to tell update jokes knowing that you were hanging above me. Like the sword of Damocles. Yeah, by the way, especially with all the Spider-Man musical stuff happening, I was like, if they are falling. Well, also, you're really got to knock on wood if you're going to joke on

the fact that they're falling. And in order to joke on it, you gotta rig yourself up. Karmically speaking, I was owed a fall. It's amazing how sexy that can be in Spider-Man and how probably unsexy it was to shoot, I would think, for Tobey. In the movie, they just rig up Tobey for one second and they're like, go, go, go, go, go!

We should call him. I do think that a list I want to keep running for this podcast in our early nascent stages is guests we want to have on to answer really short questions. That's great. So Toby, just to explain real quick how long he had to be upside down. Okay, well, yeah. Ask him the one question.

He goes like, five minutes. Okay, thanks for coming on. Thanks for coming on, Toby. And then ideally get him to do a live ad for us. Long intro music, long outro music. Can we start a list? Yeah. So we're going to have long guests, but I also want to have short guests, which are

tops two questions. I have two ideas for long guests. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Neil Long, Justin Long. Oh, I thought you were going to say Snoop Dogg. That's so great.

That sucks. Howie Long. Great. Yep. Seth, I got to say, like for your intro for this, I get sort of jealous thinking about the time you didn't spend with us. Oh, you shouldn't be. I genuinely mean it.

I mean, for me, the first four years before you guys showed up, not because you weren't there yet, but that was my most fraught time at the show because I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing yet. Yeah. So it was a fun time to be in New York City. But you guys showed up right about the time where I finally felt like I knew what I was doing yet. Yeah. So it was a fun time to be in New York City. But you guys showed up right about the time where I finally felt like I had some footing on the show.

So I was a lot more fun to be around. Wait, wait. What year did you feel like that kicked over? Because I remember my second year going up an elevator with Emily Spivey, who I consider like a vet. Like she was a veteran writer who was getting like two to three pieces on every week. And I was having like a panic attack in the elevator going up 17.

And I was like, when does this end? And she was like, oh, it never ends. I think my second year you guys were there, I started doing update and felt a little better. That'll do it. Whereas the first year you guys were there, I think it was the flop sweatiest year I had because not just Andy, but also Bill Sudeikis.

First years for those guys. Three male whites. Three male whites. And I was barely holding on as a male white. I already felt like I was in third position behind Fred and Forte. Right. And then all of a sudden,

I'm not even sniffing the podium. As far as as I was like outside chance as a bronze medalist for best male white but it was rough and also I really liked writing for all you guys more than I liked writing for me and I had this realization of

oh if I don't like writing for me it's so funny the perception for everyone is completely different though, because no one ever thinks they're on solid ground except for like two people. And for us, I was like, oh, Seth gets something in Top of Show every week. Yeah. Yeah. I always thought of you as just like, oh, he's killing it. But Top of Show was a little different because sometimes, I don't know, I felt like a lot of cold opens that were serviceable. You know what I mean? They weren't things that-

You know what Akiva always liked to say? What's that? Top of show is topical. Oh, topical. It's always topical. Oh, yeah. You did. Oh, that brings back the memories. And I'd be like, oh, that's not quite a nested rhyme.

Yeah, that was your criticism of it. You'd be like, yeah, but it works. The more I say it, the more people agree. That's right. I will say this. I don't remember what year it was. I went into Lauren's office and said something about what I thought was wrong with update when I was hosting it. And Lauren said, updates the least of my problems.

And he didn't say it's not a problem. But there was something about him saying it was the least of his problems where I thought, oh, look at me. Teacher's pet. Looks like I might be not, but that speaks to the fact that you're never on firm footing. You're just like not the biggest problem in his world. Right. Look at me. You just sucked less than everything else sucked at that moment.

Yeah. No, it's always just like, well, I won't get fired this week. How was your day, honey? Let's just say I'm the least with Lauren's problems. And he's got a lot of them. His house in Amagansett has squirrels.

I had a weird path because when you write a sketch on SNL, you have to be under the bleachers with Lauren. And because I was a cast member first, it wasn't until my fifth year that I wrote something where then I was under the bleachers with Lauren. And because I was a cast member first, it wasn't until my fifth year that I wrote something

where then I was under the bleachers because almost everything I wrote, I was in. And it was so jarring to be under there and realize, oh, this is why writers are always in a terrible mood. Like, I thought actors had it bad because if you're sketch bombed, you bombed in front of the audience, but it wasn't as bad.

No, there's nothing quite like bombing in front of Lauren. And just, yeah. Yeah. If cast heard what was said about them, they would quit the business. So Alex Baze, who took over Update after Doug Ables and now is the head writer for Late Night, he did the thing you're not supposed to do, but it was so funny he had to do it, which is he basically shared a awful thing Lauren said about me during a weekend update,

which is really funny because I realized now we do a thing on our show called A Closer Look, which is sort of our signature piece. Amy had left and I was trying to figure out a new kind of really thing to do. And I had a magnifying glass and it was called A Closer Look. And I spoke with a Sherlock Holmes-y accent and basically took a magnifying glass and it was called A Closer Look and I spoke with

a Sherlock Holmes-y accent and basically took a closer look at something. And after it finished, Lorne turned to Baze and said, burn the tape. You gotta just tip your cap to that.

Yeah, burn the tape is a really good... You gotta take some swings though. You gotta take some swings though. You gotta take some swings. So as the maybe proxy host of the show, I do wanna keep things moving. The goal to our listeners, I do wanna say the goal of this

is to go through the digital shorts over the years. But before we get to that, let's talk real quick. And guys, I've heard it before. It's not the best story, but tell everybody how you met. Well, Keeve's been pretty quiet. I think it's his turn. Yeah, Keeve, jump off. Yeah, Keeve, you take over.

Oh, geez. How fast can I get through it? But pretty fast, right? It's just, we all grew up in Berkeley, California. We went to the public schools. Me and Jorm met in seventh grade at Willard Junior High. And Andy was a grade younger, although not in years, just more like maybe got held back. I don't know.

Jorm is over a year older than me. Okay. I'm the most mature. So we met him when we were in eighth and he's in seventh. But me and Jorm became friends in seventh. And then all of us became friends in 11th grade, really? My 10th, you're 11th. Again, I'm younger.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, calendar year, you're not a year younger than me 11th. Again, I'm younger. Yeah, yeah. I mean, calendar year, you're not a year younger than me. But once again, I don't know how that happened. Probably held back, I'm going to guess. Right. And we get a lot of the same references that Yorm is a little aged out of.

That's right. I was a big Snorks guy growing up. Exactly. Whereas Yorm was more into Snorks. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The thing about the Snorks era is it had a hard out.

Yeah. Hard out, yeah. Basically between grades. There was no bleed. No bleed on the Snorks. No, they canceled it and that was it. The Snorks, can I jump in? I'm going to interrupt your narrative real quick.

Yeah. I think the Snorks were the first thing as a kid that I realized was a knockoff. Yes. Yes. I think for all of us, we were like, well, this is a ripoff. I like it, but this sucks. Yeah, I'm gonna watch it, but I don't respect it.

Like eight years old. It's pretty shitty. I can't believe you're doing the Smurfs like this, but I do like my Snorks. But Astro's a charming guy. Do you have a favorite thing that's clearly a knockoff?

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, GoBots, right? Oh yeah, were GoBots, were second? I think I just researched and found out that they were first, but in my mind, they were second and were the ripoff. Oh, so then for me, Transformers. Yeah, I guess Transformers.

The famous ripoff of GoBots. What a knockoff. Wait, there's no way. GoBots was first? All right. So this is, again, you know, we're in the lab, so to speak.

That's our question for the next episode. Everybody has to come up with their favorite knockoff. Oh, I like that. Is that engaging social? Yeah. Oh, that's smart.

We will get the answer really quickly. When you guys tell me, I want you to preface it with hashtag knockoff. Oh, that's really good. All right. So you guys met in high school during the Snorks era.

When did you guys realize you were collaborators? When did you move to LA? All at once together? All at once in 2000. Jorm had lived there because he went to UCLA. Then me and Keeve both did film in college. They both somehow took a year off. So we all graduated at the same time.

Again, I'm a year younger, full year younger. You're NYU, Andy. I graduated from NYU, yeah. You're Santa Cruz, Keeve? Me and Keeve hung at Santa Cruz though, because I went to Santa Cruz my first two years. This is interesting. And then we all had made like video and film projects.

Jorm was doing acting and he acted in Keeve's stuff. And we met back up in the summer after we all graduated and showed each other the stuff we had made. And we were like, oh, I see, we're all dumbasses. Let's work together since we're already friends and we want to do the same thing. And we took a picture at Yoram's house that we still have. We could put that in the show notes. Yeah.

The evening. I always hear podcasts always talk about show notes. There was an evening where we met. Well, we put that in the show. I'm trying to tell the fucking story, piece of shit. I want to ask Seth if we have show notes. Stop asking about the fucking show notes. I always hear about show notes. We can do show notes, Keith. This is the fucking story, you piece of shit. I want to ask Seth if we have show notes. Stop asking about the fucking show notes.

I always hear about show notes. We can do show notes, Keith. This is the first time this story has ever been told. All right, keep going, Andy. I got to say, if anyone actually turned this on,

they already know this story probably, right? I mean, I guess not. They might be just Seth heads. That's true. Do you think the Seth heads at this point are a little worried about the lack

of politics? Possibly. What I do know they want is little worried about the lack of politics? Possibly. What I do know they want is our three opinion on politics of the day. Yeah. When you go full politics and mix it with zero politics, I guess you end up with like a little bit. Yeah. This is, I think, a good level, which is zero. So you move to LA.

I'll take it from here. So we took this photo at my mom's house. Which will be in the show notes. Exactly. And it was the three of us making a decision to go down to Los Angeles altogether. We all moved into my super shitty tiny apartment on the West side of Los Angeles. Then I went on vacation and these guys looked for houses for two weeks. I was in Hawaii with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, but they found an awesome apartment on Fairfax and Olympic that Akiva ended

up dubbing the Lonely Island. But we went with it. So credit to us. Yeah. More credit to us for approving Akiva's idea. It's not a good name. And hopefully we'll find a name for this podcast in the same organic way. Burn the tapes. Burn the tapes. You'll also find that this repeats too of me and Andy approving Keeve's great ideas. Yeah. And then taking credit for being the approvers. Yeah. Not overtly, but just sometimes by being the face of the operation,

getting credit. Yeah, that's true. So now you're making videos. Yeah. We're all temping, like really, really shitty temp jobs in Los Angeles. Who was the worst temp

of the three of you? Ooh, that's really hard. I think both me and Andy were probably tied. I got fired three times. I got fired a lot. What did you get fired for? I got fired from a BMW dealership on the west side of Los Angeles for printing my resume for another job.

That's more fun. Yeah. I was just late as shit every day, no matter where I was. Yeah, I got fired for being late once. And then our best firing story was that we would constantly take shittier temp jobs for shittier pay if we could all work together. So we got a job working for Fox making Christmas ornaments. It was just in a warehouse where we were tying ribbons onto silver stars for Fox employees. And I think we were getting paid like $7 an hour. And then about 45 minutes into our

morning, a woman came over to us and was like, okay, I need you to sit over bad. And then about 45 minutes into our morning, a woman came over to us and was like, okay, I need you to sit over here. And then I need you to sit over here. We were like, wait, I'm sorry, are we in fucking camp? We were being separated. And then we were like, no, no, no. The only reason we took this job is because we wanted to talk to each other. And she was like, well, that's not going to work for us because you guys aren't working well enough. We're like, we think we're working better actually. And then she was like, well, you guys can leave if you don't want to separate. And we're like, okay, great. Well, you're missing one key detail.

Which is what? She said, if you don't like it, you can leave. And we went, hmm, what time is it? And we checked our watch and we were like, they're still serving McDonald's breakfast. So we quit. We took our hour long $7. And we went and got McDonald's breakfast, so we quit. We took our hour-long $7. And we went and got McDonald's breakfast.

That was the deciding factor. Yeah. When you made the decision based on that, she probably didn't think, I can't believe I let him get away. The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast is supported by Airbnb. Hey, Yorm. Yes. I want to tell you real quick about a trip I took

at an Airbnb in Pittsburgh. We got there. My family was there. You know we love sports, my family. You guys are nuts for sports. The personal touches were really nice. There were old Steelers newspaper articles framed, Pirates articles framed,

but also a big old picture of Mr. Rogers and another big old picture of Wiz Khalifa. That is everything Pittsburgh. That is a black and yellow Airbnb. And it made our visit very personal. And this is just a shout out to anybody who might be listening, thinking, hey, my home has personal touches. People who visited my town might want to stay there.

You might as well just go over to Airbnb and see what your hosting opportunities are. And you can enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, Jorm. Yes. We talk a lot on this podcast about a very special time in our life

where we were just drained emotionally, physically, on empty. Are you talking about right now? Because that's where I'm at, Seth. Well, I was talking about the past. Oh, okay. The past is often present with you, Jorm. It is. That's what I'm always saying.

I think a lot of people we knew back in the day and a lot of those same people now have used therapy as a helpful tool for those days when you're feeling drained, when you feel like you have no energy for the things that are important to you. And BetterHelp is a great option for anyone who's looking for somebody to talk to. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Seth, if they wanted to talk to you personally and just get it all out, could they? No, I am not available nor licensed. But fortunately, BetterHelp is. Find your social sweet spot with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash island today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash island.

You're in LA. You're making short videos. They're airing. What was that show where they would show videos every week? Channel something? Yeah, airing is not really the right word for it, but it was almost like a mini film festival each month where 200 people would get together

to show each other their videos, Channel 101, which was created by Dan Harmon and Rob Schraub. Shout out to Rob and Harmon. What's the path from you guys doing that to you guys writing for the movie awards? We purposely didn't take jobs, specifically because a friend of ours had sort of gotten into the circuit of writing for like sitcoms and then never got to do their own stuff. So we'd sort of seen like, oh, if you get into that world, sometimes like that's the end and you just start

writing for other people. And so we always kind of wanted to do our own thing. I was just talking about this the other day. And I think it was also on the naive idea that they would take away our specialness and we would go be a cog in a machine. And we were 22 and self-righteous and didn't realize you can go work on a sitcom for six years and then go be Charlie Kaufman, like the most original writer of all time. In our minds, the moment we became corporate drones, we would disappear into the system. Well, we're from Berkeley. I don't remember ever even talking about it.

We just would when we were so broke. Did we get offered to write on shows though? No. That's what I'm saying. Like we didn't get offered. I don't even know who we were. I think that's very nice of you to establish, Andy, for our industry listeners.

No offer was made. None offers. Got it. I think that's very nice of you to establish, Andy, for our industry listeners. Yeah. No. That no offer was made. None offers. Got it. We were literally like boogie nights, like coked up in the attic. And if they offer a job for us, they know because we got morals. Does it count as principle that this never got road tested?

Yeah. But we couldn't afford coke. Well, yeah. Our friend got us a job on the Movie Awards, put us in touch with Joel Gallen, and split a single writer check. This should be noted. For people not in showbiz,

this is another reason why it was good that you guys didn't take a sitcom job. This weird thing where two people are allowed to be one writer. They allowed us to be one writer. And I think that we got $100 a day. And then after taxes, that covered like a burrito. It was $1,000 a week. So we were getting $333 each. And we already had gotten managers and agents that we were really proud that we had

gotten agents and managers. We were also paying them 20% of $333 a week each. I will point out that the MTV Movie Awards were a cool job at that point. Like when we would look at previous scripts, it was like Wayne and Showalter had worked on it and like Chris Henchey and John Glazer was there with us. Yeah. And John Benjamin. They were both there. That's right. That's right. Yeah. It was a great show. Yeah. I remember it being a show as a comedy person you didn't want to miss. For sure. I mean, it being a show as a comedy person you didn't want to miss. For sure. I mean, there were very memorable things like the Stiller

stunt double with Tom Cruise thing was like a sketch that was not on a sketch show that everyone knows. Yes. And MTV had super deep pockets then. So the sketches looked great. Yeah, they looked amazing. Yeah, it was a lot of cutting people into the movies and stuff. And it was just cool for us to be able to write for like actually cool, famous people on these little pops. And I feel like first year we barely got anything on. It's also pre-social media. So it was still rare to get to see movies get made fun of in any way. Right.

And a bunch of famous people in one place, like not in a movie or a show. Yeah. That was still rare. And you guys did it twice though? Yeah. Yeah. We did the Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay Lohan was first year. But then the second year is the big year because Fallon hosts. Correct. Fallon hosts brings Shoemaker, Higgins, and a ton of SNL writers with them. Right. Including you. No. No. But you were just there? The after parties, I think maybe the first time we met, but I did not write on it. I would have remembered if Seth was writing. Yeah. Right. But I feel like you were in town. I feel like we hung out in hotel rooms with a bunch of SNL writers while we were doing

it. And I feel like you were there. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I remember Shoemaker, who, again, just to give people backstory, Shoemaker was a producer at SNL. We were all there. He's a name that's going to come up a ton.

He's now the producer of this show. He's the best. For my money, there's no better friend of writers in television than Mike Shoemaker. Tell us why. Because he just sees what you're good at and tells you what to do with your own skills as opposed to telling you that thing that other people do where they tell you sort of what's hot right now. Yeah. His thing is what you do is great. Here's how you should take what you do and make it the thing that's hot right now. He. His thing is, what you do is great. Here's how you should take what you do and make it the thing that's hot right now. He is a wonderful person.

He's also someone who can tell when people are spinning out and he's good at telling them, you're worrying about the wrong thing. You're fine. Yeah. Which, especially at SNL, you just need someone to tell you that. He also worked his way up from like PA, right?

At SNL? Yeah. So he started in 1985, he was a script PA at SNL where writers would write sketches in 1985 on yellow legal pads. And then he just slowly worked his way up and I think understood the bones of that place better than anybody. When we first got hired, our first meeting was in Shoemaker's office, like with all the new writers that got hired, right? Keeve, you were there. Andy wasn't there for this, but we were waiting for Tucker, Brian Tucker. And I just remember meeting Shoemaker

and being like, I can't believe this is our boss. Like one of our bosses. Like I was like, this dude is so fucking funny and great and like the nicest dude and have never changed my opinion of him. Yeah, I feel like Shoemaker and I always laugh that I would not have the career I have without Shoemaker. And what works great is he tells everybody what to do. And if you listen, he loves you. If you listen, it goes great.

I mean, he understood very early on what the best use of my skills were. I think he did with you guys as well. And people who sort of don't fight it have a pretty high percentage of winning. As we go through these shorts, he will come up a lot, especially right at the beginning

because he was the main person encouraging us to keep doing them. One last interesting thing about Shoemaker. I recently had dinner with him. It was supposed to be with him and Seth, but Seth had another baby, so he bailed. It's true. Classic.

And Shoemaker, after a few drinks, confessed to me finally that even though he thought I was funny and Seth was funny, that his favorite comedian is Colin Quinn and everyone else sucks in comparison. This is very true. He's like, I get why you guys are good. Shoemaker's always

put Quinn first. Wait, that's real? He's like, I get why you guys are good, but he's for me. Quinn is my guy. I was like, look, I get it.

I love Quinn. Yeah. When Quinn is on our show, it's the most heartbreaking thing because Shoemaker has a super recognizable laugh

and he sits the same place every show I do. And when Quinn is on, Quinn gets like 10 Shoemaker laughs. And in my head, I'm thinking,

I think that's what I got in all of May. He loves Quinn. I mean, Colin Quinn is super funny. We all love him. But I will say, everybody that was

at the show at the same time as him, they know the truth that he's actually the funniest of all of them. Not only is he the funniest, but he's so up Shoemaker's alley as a pure New York comedian because Shoemaker is pure New York. Yeah. Yep.

So jumping ahead, you guys meet Shoemaker. He likes you guys. Andy, I remember some of what you did in your audition that got you hired. Do you remember your audition? I do. I want to know what you remember. Well, I did in your audition that got you hired. Do you remember your audition? I do. I want to know what you remember. Well, I remember watching your audition. It filled a huge hole because obviously at SNL,

you're always looking for people who can play those who are in the news. And at the time, we didn't have a Swedish chef. You have to remember from like 2001 to 2005, when the Swedish chef was in the news. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember, but like, You have to remember from like 2001 to 2005 when the Swedish chef was in the news. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember, but like there was some weeks where it was conspicuous in its absence. Yeah.

There's going to be so many people who have auditioned for this show who listen to this. They're like, what the fuck? Oh, yeah. The Swedish chef. If you auditioned for this show and didn't get it and you like overthought it and you were like, what do they need? What are they looking for? They don't want that. I know they don't want that. You really came in and basically said, fuck off.

Here's the thing. I'm a politico as established. Yes. Yeah, we all think that. I didn't and still kind of don't follow the news. That's probably better. I mean, I watch a closer look from time to time. Thank you, buddy.

Yeah. The old one that was in dress rehearsal Look from time to time. Thank you, buddy. Yeah. The old one that was in dress rehearsal that got cut. Yeah, the Sherlock Holmes one. That's the one. Wait, that's... So when somebody says to you, I love Seth Meyers' Closer Looks, you're thinking of the magnifying glass?

I'm like, oh, you have access to that? Must be some dark web shit. What was your Swedish chef impression? How long did you do the Swedish chef? I mean, we did them all at the time for each other Like, or me and Andy You guys helped me write my audition, which was very nice Yeah

You know who else helped me with my audition was Will Forte For no reason other than just to be nice Like, fully helped me workshop it That's classic Forte Should be noted, another name that will come up a great deal in this podcast. Genuinely one of the nicest, most selfless human beings. To a fault. Often to the detriment of the people

who are currently with him. Yes. If you go into a party, the deeper you go in with Will Forte, you're not leaving with fucking Will Forte, because he's going to say goodbye to every motherfucker on the way out. Yeah. Yep. But audition. Yeah, Yeah. But audition. Yeah.

What did you do? Schmorgaty Borg. You Schmorgaty Borg'd? I Schmorgaty Borg'd. Oh, I think it was like a commercial for like pop songs, but it was the Swedish chef singing them. So it was basically just like the Swedish chef doing In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. And I think I did like a long wind up to the like Schmorgaty Borg'd. Schmorgaty Borg'd.

Schmorgaty Borg'd. Schmorgaty schmort. Better than I remember. Yeah. So wait, Andy, is all you remember Swedish Chef? Because that's all I remember. No, I remember probably all of it if I really. Just do it for us.

It had to be under five minutes. It's a mix of standup. I had been doing standup. Oh, right. So you did some standup. You did Chef. I did Ross Trent in one of them. Really? Which ended up being a digital short. Years in. Yes. I feel like I

weirdly did actually do a lot of what I did in my audition on the show, but it always ended up being like one line in a sketch. Like, I think I did an impression of Billy Bob Thornton. Right. Did you do Jimmy Fallon? I did Jimmy Fallon, and I ended up doing that with Jimmy. We, like, redid his Mick Jagger mirror thing

with me and him when he hosted. Do you remember an update you did on air where you played Jimmy Fallon at Hanukkah that got cut? It didn't air. I did an update feature called Jewy Fallon. And it was just me as Jimmy talking about Jewish stuff.

I feel like, what do we think? On the count of three, I want everybody to answer. In 2024, can you do a character called Joey Fallon? One, two, three. Of course you can. No. You think definitely yes? Oh, for sure.

If you're Jewish. Yeah, that's true. You could. Yeah. So you get hired, and then you guys get hired as writers. Akeev and Yoram. Yeah. Andy went, did an audition, came back.

Then they said, all right, that went well enough. Why don't all three of you come in and audition? So Andy had to do a second audition. And we had really scraped the barrel to try to put together that first one. And then, of course, in classic SNL fashion, they go, don't do anything anything you did the first time so he had to come up with a whole new one and we weren't coming from like a improv theater background like we had been making all these little short films together and borrowing video cameras from friends and equipment and things like that and just making stuff together because that's what we knew but we weren't coming from like a being on stage every day like making

up new characters and so it was scraping the barrel to be like, here's an impression of this guy. It is weird because this is part of the first half of your first season, which is how far you guys went from your strengths. Like you did this arc away from it

and then back to it. It's so weird that the show didn't know from the beginning, oh, these guys make short films. Right. That was not a job opening. That was not a slot

that needed to be filled. It wasn't. And nor did anyone know that we did that. I think that Shoemaker, I had seen episodes of The Boo. So that was your OC parody. Yeah. To timestamp it. So I knew you guys made short videos. But even then, working at the show, it did not occur to me that that would be your path forward. And we realized that sort of quickly because I remember one of the first things we wrote for the show was a sketch that was a musical. Correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but it was Andy as a young man who wants to wear his shorts at night and his overly strict father, who I believe was Forte, won't let him wear his shorts at night. And it was a musical. And then at one point he flew out of a window on shorts like Aladdin of like his dream of his shorts at night. And it was a musical. And then at one point, he flew out of a window on shorts like Aladdin

of like his dream of wearing shorts at night. Just a drastic overreach in our very first episode. And it was a real realization at the table of being like, this doesn't work for this show. To be fair, that would not have worked as a pre-tape either. No, it sucked. Right. It wouldn't have.

Yeah. But it was just like explaining your humor is a difficult thing occasionally. And the videos for us were sort of a shortcut to doing that because you can just sort of present the idea after the fact. That's true. I do want to start talking about this effort you guys made for LiveSketches. And I've done some research, but real quick. Oh, boy. Did you all find out at the same time that you were hired? I found out first. I believe the story is I found out on a Friday and we spent the whole weekend sweating it out and being like, Andy, you have to take it.

Like they were being so nice. They were like, you have to take it, it's your dream. And if they hire both of us, we'll come. But if they only hire one of us, then we'll stick together. You'll go off without us. And it was like super dramatic and intense. And by the way, like it was, we had been working together for five straight years

and living together. Yeah. Me and Yorm had to make a pact essentially so that there wouldn't be one of us left in LA by ourselves. And now all jokes aside,

because earlier we talked about how you guys turned down all these sitcom jobs you were never offered. But I think I can venture that you guys would have kept that pact. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. Do you really think now today if only one of you had gotten hired, you guys would have said no? I think we would have. I think it would have been a crazy hard decision, but I think we would have. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Do you really think now today, if only one of you had gotten hired, you guys would have said no? I think we would have. I think it would have been a crazy hard decision, but I think we would have. Yeah. I don't know how they ever could have decided between us since we turned in a writing packet together. No, but I did audition

and I didn't get the show. So that might've been more of a strike against one of us. I requested a writer's meeting, by the way, when they offered us all the audition after Andy did good. And I was like, I'll go for a writer's meeting. And so I had a meeting with Tina and Lauren. Oftentimes, though, you're in people audition and it helps their cause getting hired as a writer because you get to show off your writing. I got one laugh that I can remember in my audition. It was just me dancing as a 13-year-old at a bar mitzvah. And it was no words and it was just like really awkward.

It was kind of like a Just You Guys guys character just very awkward dancing and like small and i got one audible laugh from tina and i was like fuck yeah if that was just that that was fucking worth it yeah it's like why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box right that's probably what she was thinking oh we'll just do this so guys andy's first appearance on the show is Bill and Andy Impression Off on October 1st 2005 Bill Hader and Andy Samberg

lay it out for us guys well we had tried to write some big barn burner sketch that Yorm has already talked about and when nothing we did got picked

we got told like oh you always get a second chance to figure out something on the show because you can always slide an update in. So we knew that was the only chance something else could get on the show. And so it must've been Thursday night and me and Andy had an apartment together. So it was like three or four in the morning on Thursday night. Andy, is that your memory of it? I think that was the gist. I mean, it was born of me knowing that Bill, who we were already buddies with, was really good at impressions and I was famously bad at them. And just kind of leading into that. It's very fun to rewatch because the game is that Bill does great impressions and you do terrible ones. Yes. But the other fun thing is that, and I don't know if this was the backbone of the idea,

Bill's impressions were not for the audience. No, they're so old. He had a really good Peter Falk and a really good James Mason, but they don't actually kill. Like, they're insanely good, but it's not, like, crushing. That probably helped your cause, Andy. But that's a good intro to Bill, though, and Bill's heart. Okay, Peter Falk. Listen, gee, this guy, this guy's wacko, I tell you.

He's really wacko. Pretty good, but how about a little Jack Nicholson? All right, here we go. Hey, how's it going? I'm Jack Nicholson. What's up? My next impression is acclaimed English actor James Mason. I've told you before, Lolita, no boys.

Thank you. How about a little dash of Julia Roberts? Hey, how's it going? I'm Julia Roberts, the pretty woman. What's up? Question for you, Andy, because a sketch I wrote, and again, time stamping when you guys started, we did a fundraiser for a Katrina sketch, and it was celebrities, and Bill did Pacino.

And destroyed. Yeah, it was one of those show-stopping moments. We are building a new house in the new New Orleans. We'll put the doors wherever we want. What? Oh, there's a shih tzu stuck in a Spanish oak tree. I go to save that door. It's fascinating now to know, and Bill's talked openly about his anxiety on the show.

And again, to echo what we've said, nobody has an easy ride. Nobody ever thinks. But at that moment, standing next to him, because I was doing my less well-received Anderson Cooper. But I knew, having been on the show for at that point, you know, it was the beginning of my fifth season. If I could have said anything to him after that, it would have been, oh, you're going to be fine. Yeah. It was like a rock concert. He was the next thing, for sure. Who were you in that sketch, Andy?

I was holding a boom mic. Oh. I was like a guy in the news crew. But you fucking nailed it, though. Everybody thought you nailed it. Yeah. But Bill and Andy Impression Off was a success. It should be noted. Yeah, it went well. You do what Bill Murray did. You guys come off as charming.

When it ends, everybody, I believe, thinks, oh, I'm excited to see more of those two guys. Sure. I mean, it definitely set up who we were. Yeah. Like Bill doing amazing impressions of super old cinephile actors and me being like a massive doofus.

Yeah. Then an episode later, congratulations, you get your first sketch on the werewolf. To be just starting on the show and get something on the first two episodes, we were feeling pretty good. You should. Wait a minute, are you a werewolf too? Oh, what, this? No, no,

it's just a mustache. I like the way I looked on Tom so much, I decided to grow one myself. Woo! Huh? it's just a mustache. I like the way it looked on Tom so much, I decided to grow one myself. They get it, Tom, you're a wolf. It was a guy who brings home a first date, and he starts warning her in a way that lets you know he's a werewolf. And at midnight or whatever, he's going to have a transformation and be horrific. And then the time strikes, and all of a sudden it's just, now he's hideous. But the only thing that changes now, has like a nice mustache. Yeah. And he's like, don't look at me. I'm hideous. Essentially, a recurring theme of mustaches in our work. Yeah. Mustaches play a big role in your

first year on the show. But now there's one. It's really going to sound like busting, but it's the greatest gift you guys ever gave because one, you guys wrote a pre-tape bit that went badly. I think at this moment, I think it's safe to say, Akiva especially, I remember you saying, I want to shoot my own stuff based on how this went.

Oh, I know what it is. But also, this song has never left my head. It's a fucking earworm. JJ Casuals. Keep it casual Whatever Keep it natural

With shoes that look like feet. Things get hectic, but don't sweat it. Keep it J.J. casual. Mm-hmm. Do you like to keep it mellow? Can you dig it? Shoes that look like feet. Can I explain this one?

Yeah, please. J.J. Casuals was Andy doing the impression of Jack Johnson. It was a commercial parody. JJ Casuals are shoes that look like feet. The whole premise is sometimes you go to a restaurant and they make you wear shoes. But if you're Jack Johnson, you don't want to wear shoes because you keep it casual.

And so there are shoes that look like feet. As a premise, it all makes sense to me. I rewatched it. The audience, they're keeping it casual, too. The whole time. Out of respect for the writers. Out of respect. But I will tell you that in my life, not a month goes by where I don't think,

things get hectic, but don't sweat it. Keep your treasure casual. It is the catchiest. Words to live by. Yeah. Things get hectic, but don't sweat it. Keep it JJ casual. The writing was on the wall.

There was some tunes coming. Tunes were coming. Yeah. As a sketch, didn't quite land. Well, we were not allowed in the editing room. We got positive feedback, I will say. Yes. When you're that new on the show,

just getting something on feels like such a big win. Even something not doing well to you is so far beyond what you expect, which is to not get anything on. I will say every one of these we were counting as a win, even when we knew they weren't doing good. I remember, to be honest, when you wrote JJ Casuals, I thought it was super funny because we would pick the commercial parodies before the season started. And so I loved it. And I do feel like the problem was maybe the sensibility of who ended up shooting it and editing it was different. Yeah. And I don't want to call anybody out or anything, but there was a moment that we had while shooting it where Keeve leaned over to me while it was being shot because you didn't have that much power in this particular scenario.

None. Yes. None power, but they allowed writers on set. And Keeve leaned over and was like, they just crossed the line. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah. It's day one of film school.

It's day one. It's the eye line. And we were like, wait a minute. It was a moment where there was two people at the maitre d', you know, at the front desk of a restaurant and they flipped sides. And I was like, I like whispered it to restaurant, and they flipped sides, and I was like,

I, like, whispered it to Jorm and, like, drew a diagram, and was like, maybe we don't understand. Maybe they're doing something else. We were like, oh, maybe we're wrong. And then we just watched them waste the time of, like, do the whole scene, realize it slowly by talking to some script supervisor, come back, set the camera on the other shoulder, and do the scene again.

And it was one of the things that we were like, oh, we should do the thing that we've been doing for the last five years i guess we do know enough and i do remember i'm saying this as a criticism myself and also a compliment to you guys i remember you came back keith after shooting that and said basically a different version of what you just explained about crossing the line and you were a little bit more heated than you are now. Oh, yeah. And I remember the way I responded to you, because, again, I'd been there for a few years, and I think I had sort of relaxed into what the establishment of the show was.

I felt like that scene where, in Chinatown, where the cop takes Nicholson and goes, it's Chinatown, Jake. I was like, this is just how it is. Because I think, to some degree, when you cross the line in filmmaking, they always say that's like if it's Chinatown, Jake. I was like, this is just how it is. Because I think to some degree, like when you cross the line in filmmaking, they always say that's like if it's both your mother and your sister.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they say. And I think that's just to like tip people to how this podcast obviously turns out. You guys were unsatisfied with that as an outcome. And I will say like that kind of sentiment was also expressed to us on set. Yeah, it was in the editing room.

That was what I was about to say. There was multiple things. It was on set. We felt like not just with the flipping of the thing, but also Andy was worried about doing the song and they wasted the whole day on things that didn't matter, like the side characters. And they were like, OK, now it's time for Andy to do his song. We have five minutes left.

And he got like two takes. Then we got into editing, really spent a couple hours writing down really detailed notes that were like frame specific of like, you could get out of that cut a little earlier, sat with the editor and she was like, oh yeah, these are all great. Then the person in charge came in. We went and got maybe into two, like, okay, well we have a bunch. She could just do them and show you our cut. But he's like, let me hear them. And we're like, all right, first one is this. We got maybe two in and he realized we had a whole sheet of like frame specific notes. And that's when he said what jorm said of like okay okay okay i get the idea you know guys he's like essentially like pushing us on the back out the

door this show's watched by 12 year olds and people who are high on weed oh you guys can just and he ushered us into an elevator and then the elevator broke and we were stuck in the elevator at the brill building for like three hours. Oh man, I forgot that. Oh my God, I forgot that part. So maybe that's what you were picking up on also, Seth, when we came back and we're a little heated. Yeah.

Yeah, just like, oh wait, what the fuck? No, we care a little bit more about this than that. It was also, when you're not at the show, as you know, the real world, and especially comedians, talk a lot of shit about the show. And we had been defenders of the show as people who would watch it religiously every week. This is important to note, because I think that's true. There's a lot of people before they get on the show,

sometimes could be comedian haters of the show, which by the way, a position I understand and respect, but you guys were never that. No, we were obsessed with it. We watched every week. Yeah, and we would have our critiques, but we would almost keep them insular to our group of like, oh man, we don't like that one.

Oh, that's so good. I think we had an understanding of the challenge of the show, but after defending it from people who thought the show was lazy and being like, are you kidding? It's so much work. It's not lazy. They're trying their best. And then have somebody who worked at the show essentially say exactly what all those people always are imagining the people are saying at SNL. We were like, oh no, are they right? That can't be right. Yeah. So then I guess the tipping point is you guys shoot something just for yourselves over one of the first breaks of that fall of 05. Do you remember going to air Andy with Sea Captain?

Oh, but it got cut, didn't it? Yeah, it did not air. It went to dress. What was the premise? I was a young Sea Captain. You were a 17-year-old sea captain. Right, right, right. And it was basically one take Tony, right?

It was like, don't worry, I'm a prodigy, and da-da-da, and then we immediately crashed. It's so, yeah, you're a 17-year-old captain. Everybody's, like, very concerned that you're a 17-year-old captain. I read it today. It is crazy how many pages in to it before the turn. Yeah, we didn't get it. You're just a very competent sea captain.

So this is like page three, Amy Poehler. You know, I heard a rumor that the captain of this ship is a 17 year old boy. 17? That can't be right. Oh, it's right all right. You're talking about Chip Youngblood, the youngest sea captain in all the world.

Page four, still haven't met him. Finally he walks in, page five. Good afternoon, still haven't met him. Finally, he walks in. Page five. Good afternoon, Wilkins. Good afternoon, Captain Youngblood. What's the weather report? Well, winds out of the southwest at 15 knots, sir. Oh.

15? Are you sure? Feels more like 12 to me. Well, uh... Right you are, sir. 12 knots. You never cease to amaze. All right, so that's page 5 Jesus

Page 6 Still like nothing Dry as a bone Build suspense Page 7 Still nothing A lot of different sets By the way

You're like in the dining hall Keep it expensive Then VT pre-tape Scale model Of the ocean liner Immediately crashing Into an iceberg

Come on Wait VT pre-taped scale model of the ocean liner immediately crashing into an iceberg. Oh, my! What? What was that? Sorry, we've hit an iceberg. An iceberg? No! Who would put an iceberg in the middle of the ocean?

I was so happy reading this because it was such a reminder that your sense of humor has always been your sense of humor. Oh, by the way, this was written, makes a lot of sense. This was written for Lance Armstrong. Oh, yeah. Best show ever. And then the rest of the sketch is just you being a fucking shitheel. Yeah. Who blames everybody else.

Will you go to the front page and tell me the names in the upper left corner? Sandberg. Damn it. Schaffer. Taccone. Damn it. Higgins. Higgins. Damn.

Higgins. He made it Higgins. Higgins. Damn. Higgins. He made it in. Nice. Hig Bones. Please pull yourself together and lead the crew. I don't want to lead the crew. I hate them. They're smelly and they smell like smelly fish.

It sucks. Yeah. It sucks. It's like every other line. Saying the crew of a ship smells like smelly fish, I do endorse. So you're still endorsing. That's a good turns of face. It's like every other line. Saying the crew of a ship smells like smelly fish, I do endorse. So you're still endorsing. That's good. So Seth, yet another success that you're pointing out.

But somehow for us, it really felt like we were failing at the live portion of this show. Yes. Very much so. And there was our first off week. Me and Keith were very kind of embittered and like, just feeling like, shit, what the fuck? Let's go out and make something. And we did a music video based on the Ying Yang Twins song,

the Whisper song, called the Bing Bong Brothers, which was a very mature highbrow joke of us whispering about how you might enjoy our penises. You might like our penises. Let's go from over here. Your butt looks soft. Maybe if I could touch it, I could tell if it's soft. Tell me if it's soft, because I really like to touch it.

And then I'll show you my penis, you guys. And then I'll show you my penis, you guys. And then I'll show you my penis. I watched it today, and I thought, oh, this will be a cool deep cut for people to look at online. And then I looked. It has 16 million views well now yeah but I'm just saying I kind of thought it was this weird deep cut track but

this is a key vignole on camera classically you guys it's a minute and 20 seconds it's got fake mustaches yeah it's got the doorstep of your actual apartment at the time yes which will make a return appearance almost immediately so you guys shoot this thing yes we make this little short it's probably under two minutes long it's a minute 20 minute 20 perfect length for that joke it's probably too long actually in addition to movie awards we'd also worked for g4 yet which is a music video no video game award show video game award show for Video game award show for G4, which was a network. And did we submit it to them, Keith? Did that have something to do with G4ia?

No, no. It must have been that we put it on YouTube and then they found it. Because later on that next week on a Friday, I remember we turned it on. We were like, the thing that we did is going to air on another channel. Oh, maybe they used it as a weird bumper. They played the whole thing. Maybe for a show or something like that. Somebody picked it up. But like we were like, oh, shit, this thing that we made is now airing on a different television channel. Oh, you know what? I think

that they had a show on G4 that was like way earlier than like a Tosh.0. Like web clips. Something like that. Yeah. It was just like, oh, they thought it was funny. Yeah. Yeah. Where they would just collect things from the world and just play things and like talk about them. And so they played it on that. I think you're right. I remember thinking like, oh, this is what we should be doing.

Like, this is how we can get stuff on TV. But we did that one. I remember we came back to the show after Thanksgiving and we showed it to Shoemaker. And he was like, wow, that's really cool. You guys just made that, but it's you guys. Do something like that, but do it with the cast. See what happens.

Higgins too. Yeah, yeah. I remember Higgins and Sho that, but do it with the cast. See what happens. Higgins, too. Yeah. I remember Higgins and Shoemaker sat us down and told the three of us, like, hey, if you guys want to make something like that, but using Andy or using the cast or both, that would be great. Yeah, the show is always very encouraging. And I will say, I watched it with Shoemaker today, and Shoemaker said, even the font,

because if you watch that, the fonts kind of evoke Andy popping into frame there was a style to it that looked different than anything you'd seen before I will say that is another Akiva staple because you were always the best at editing Akiva always loved this like sort of off yellow impact font and then it just became like our staple Lonely Island font well guys I think this is actually a pretty good natural ending point, because we're abutting the first digital short, which will be our next episode.

For anybody who wants to get ahead of it, it's called Lettuce. And that stoop is the exact same stoop from the Bing Bong Brothers. And Lazy Sunday. And Lazy Sunday. Saving a buck or two on locations. You know, a lot of people in New York City are walking around looking for that sex in the city stoop.

Meanwhile, the digital short stoop is two and a half blocks away. Exactly. Seth's Corner will be a very important segment on this show, where anytime there's a digital short, I'm going to tell you a thing I wrote. So Seth, we should maybe do a tee-up, though, to transition into that. So it is Seth's Corner. We're going to do a segment on the show called Seth's Corner. We put no preparation into this intro, but I'm going to let Andy do it. Now, I know all y'all are hearing a lot about TLI, short for Lonely Island, but we also have

my main man, Seth Meyers, on this booch. And that means we got to turn the magnifying glass on him. So every one of these podcasts, we're going to take a quick detour into something I like to call Seth's Corner. That's right, it's Seth's Corner, where we ask Seth something he wrote on the episode that we're talking about. And when he tells us what it is, we're going to tell him what we think for real this time. Not because we were scared of him like back then when he was our boss. No, now we're going to tell him the real truth. Prepare to be reamed, Seth. And welcome to Seth's Corner. Sing the jingle, Yorm.

Seth's Corner, you're all invited. Seth's Corner, it's happening right now. Take it away, Seth. So, Seth, what did you write this episode? Everybody, thank you for listening to episode one. We will see you soon. The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers

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