I'm On a Boat

Summary

The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast: "I'm On a Boat" Episode Summary

Release Date: May 27, 2025

In the "I'm On a Boat" episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, hosts Seth Meyers and The Lonely Island trio—Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone—dive deep into the creation, impact, and legacy of one of their most iconic Saturday Night Live (SNL) Digital Shorts. This episode offers a comprehensive look at how "I'm On a Boat" not only entertained audiences but also paved the way for future digital comedy sketches.

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1. Introduction and Opening Banter

The podcast kicks off with the hosts exchanging playful banter about their latest project, Pop Stars, now available on Netflix. Andy Samberg humorously remarks, "Let's all say it at the same time, guys. One, two, three. Pop Stars on Netflix right now." (00:04) The conversation lightens as Seth Meyers praises the film, highlighting its significance and anticipation for future podcast episodes centered around it.

2. Reminiscing on SNL Digital Shorts

Transitioning from current projects, the hosts shift gears to reminisce about their time at SNL, particularly focusing on the creation and reception of their groundbreaking digital shorts. Jorma Taccone mentions their multifaceted roles in Pop Star, noting, "Two out of three of us were directors and producers, too." (00:39) This segment underscores the collaborative spirit that fueled their innovative comedy-music fusion.

3. Discussing "I'm On a Boat"

a. Creation and Inspiration

The heart of the episode centers on "I'm On a Boat," a parody rap song that became a cultural phenomenon. Akiva Schaffer recounts the spontaneous nature of its creation: "We were playing that beat and I just started yelling, 'I'm on a boat.' And I remember Keev started laughing and we were like, I guess that's the premise." (31:00) This off-the-cuff moment led to the development of what would become one of their most beloved shorts.

b. Filming and Production Challenges

Filming the music video was no small feat. The hosts discuss the logistical hurdles they faced, including a last-minute change that condensed a planned two-day shoot into a single, intensive day. Akiva shares, "We had to collapse a two-day shoot into a single day shoot. It became a 16-hour day." (46:20) The intensity of the shoot is palpable as they describe managing complex shots, including helicopter footage and high-energy scenes on a real boat.

c. Collaborations with T-Pain

A significant highlight is their collaboration with T-Pain, whose distinctive vocals added authenticity to the parody. Jorma reminisces about securing T-Pain for the project: "We reached out to T-Pain and he said yes in the summer. Although coordinating schedules was a challenge, his involvement elevated the song." (39:33) Their ongoing friendship and mutual respect with T-Pain are evident, with Akiva noting memorable live performances together, such as at Summerfest in Milwaukee.

d. Music Video Details

The music video for "I'm On a Boat" is dissected in detail. The hosts explain the deliberate choice to blend high-energy visuals with repetitive lyrics, creating a humorous juxtaposition. Akiva explains, "The song was done quickly without overthinking. We just went straight at it and did the simplest version." (33:00) They also discuss specific scenes, like holding hamburgers as "diamonds," which added a layer of absurdity that resonated with audiences.

e. Airing and Reception

Upon airing on SNL, "I'm On a Boat" received mixed initial reactions, with some hosts expressing personal doubts. Jorma shares his concern: "I felt like we couldn't fully convey how funny it was to the live audience. It felt like a mix of disappointment and hope." (43:28) However, the short quickly gained popularity online, becoming a viral hit. Andy reflects on its success outside the traditional SNL audience: "See, I felt like it was gonna pop to the home audience, so I sort of didn't care." (63:58) The hosts celebrate its enduring legacy, noting how it became a staple at real-life parties and events.

4. Impact and Legacy

The episode delves into the broader impact of "I'm On a Boat" on both digital comedy and music parody. The hosts discuss how the short influenced future SNL Digital Shorts and inspired other comedians to explore multimedia formats. Seth Meyers emphasizes its role in bridging traditional sketch comedy with the burgeoning online video platforms of the time, essentially helping to "launch YouTube" as a venue for comedic content.

5. Closing Remarks

As the episode winds down, the hosts reflect on their journey, expressing gratitude for their collaborative efforts and the support from fans, affectionately referred to as the "Quaid Army." Jorma concludes with heartfelt appreciation: "I'm happy to be included, my man." (75:38) The conversation ends on a high note, celebrating the success of "I'm On a Boat" and looking forward to future projects that continue to push the boundaries of comedy and music.

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Notable Quotes

• Andy Samberg: "Let's all say it at the same time, guys. One, two, three. Pop Stars on Netflix right now." (00:04)

• Jorma Taccone: "Two out of three of us were directors and producers, too." (00:39)

• Akiva Schaffer: "We were playing that beat and I just started yelling, 'I'm on a boat.' And I remember Keev started laughing and we were like, I guess that's the premise." (31:00)

• Jorma Taccone: "I felt like we couldn't fully convey how funny it was to the live audience. It felt like a mix of disappointment and hope." (43:28)

• Andy Samberg: "See, I felt like it was gonna pop to the home audience, so I sort of didn't care." (63:58)

• Seth Meyers: "I'm on a boat. How's your skeleton? 12:10"
  (Note: This line refers to a joke from their SNL shorts and is used to illustrate the humor style discussed.)

Conclusion

The "I'm On a Boat" episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast offers an in-depth exploration of one of SNL's most memorable Digital Shorts. Through candid discussions, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and humorous exchanges, the hosts provide listeners with a rich understanding of the song's creation, challenges, and lasting influence on comedy and digital media.

Transcript

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, everybody, the podcast is about to start, but before it does, we have some very exciting news. Which one of you wants to tell them?

[Andy Samberg]

Let's all say it at the same time, guys. One, two, three. Pop Stars on Netflix right now.

[Jorma Taccone]

Man, I. I felt like that was a cruel tee up, Seth. Seemed like maybe it was getting something.

[Seth Meyers]

Like, I'm sorry, bud, Pop Star, which is a fantastic film, and I look forward to doing what I'm certain will be a two, if not three part episode of this podcast. Pop Star is now available on Netflix, and it's never been on Netflix, and a lot of you are going to watch it for the first time based on, you know, how it did in theaters.

[Andy Samberg]

Thanks for calling it a film, Seth. It was nice of you.

[Seth Meyers]

It's a great movie. I love it so much. I'm genuinely so excited that it's on Netflix.

[Jorma Taccone]

We got all kinds of credits on that movie. Producers, actors, writers. Two out of three of us were.

[Andy Samberg]

Directors and fucking real producers, too. PGA fucking approved, guys.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, yeah, full on pga. Everyone knows what that is.

[Seth Meyers]

And unlike NYPD Blue, you guys had the courage to show a full dick.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's right. We show butt right away. We get that out of the way in the first, like, three minutes, there's a butt. Andy's.

[Jorma Taccone]

I was like, where's he going with this again?

[Andy Samberg]

They paved the way, though. All respect.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, without Blue, Blue walked so you could run.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We name check Dennis Franz and we show.

[Jorma Taccone]

And like NYPD Blue, we had the courage to drop our Chicago accents.

[Seth Meyers]

Wait, there's something I want to say. Oh, I just feel like. You know what? We've never actually called on you Quaid army, but this is it. Quaid Army. Let's get the views on on this trending, guys. Trend.

[Jorma Taccone]

Exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

Top 10, please. All right. Enjoy the podcast. It's the Lonely island and Seth Meyers podcast.

[Andy Samberg]

How close are you, Andy, to your spelling bee climax?

[Jorma Taccone]

I got it hours ago.

[Andy Samberg]

Fuck this guy.

[Jorma Taccone]

Let's see if Seth mentions it when he comes back from either number one or number two. Okay, you want to know my guess? He's going to avoid the subject.

[Andy Samberg]

You really think he's just that dumb? I just think he's a dummy.

[Jorma Taccone]

No, I just think when he doesn't achieve his goals, he avoids talking about them.

[Seth Meyers]

Who are we talking about?

[Jorma Taccone]

No one. So how was your time away, Seth? Anything you want to bring up? Maybe some texts, whether or not I queen beed. Oh, that's an interesting subject. Did you. Did you queen bee?

[Seth Meyers]

No, I haven't yet.

[Andy Samberg]

What a fool.

[Jorma Taccone]

Do you know anyone who did?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, supposedly somebody did it with no hints.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, that was me, your best pud. One of your best buds. I said, best bud, but then I was like, wait, wait, we got a lot of best buds now.

[Seth Meyers]

Of course I'm recording, Jeff. I don't want to miss Andy shitting all over me for not getting the B. I don't think our listeners want to miss that either.

[Andy Samberg]

How many points do you have so far, Seth? Because I have 39.

[Seth Meyers]

I don't have my phone in front of me Yoram. Because I'm doing a podcast and I feel like that's inappropriate, so I can't tell you exactly how many I have.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, well, I guess you're never going to queen bee then.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, I guess not. I will say it's very exciting to start a pod knowing that Andy is already b'd.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, it makes me wonder what he's gonna do on his phone for the next hour.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, staring at something.

[Jorma Taccone]

I'm doing strands. I just got the spangler, Ruby doobie doo. And once that is put to bed, obviously I already got connections in wordle. Then I will try and get letterboxed in two words.

[Andy Samberg]

When are we gonna invite the New York Times gentleman on to talk about this crucial issue?

[Seth Meyers]

We really do have to decide two things. When are we going to have Sam on? And do we just agree now that we show the Doritos people? Here's what I think we do. We get on a zoom with the Doritos people. We don't record it and we just watch them watch it. Right.

[Andy Samberg]

I think that's fair. I would love to see that. The new guard at Doritos being like, oh, I see why that's in prison.

[Seth Meyers]

And we're just like, you don't have to say anything. You don't have to do anything. We just want to watch your faces, be able to say to our listeners what what they thought.

[Jorma Taccone]

Strands done.

[Seth Meyers]

Strands done. That's great.

[Andy Samberg]

We should watch it with them and then immediately hang up before we hear their opinions. Just judge it off their faces.

[Seth Meyers]

I really want to hear.

[Jorma Taccone]

Letterboxd has a J, an X and a V, not to mention a U and a V. This is going to be tough.

[Seth Meyers]

What is letterboxd?

[Jorma Taccone]

This one.

[Seth Meyers]

And what do you do in it?

[Jorma Taccone]

You can use one letter from each side at a time.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah, I know that one. Okay.

[Jorma Taccone]

I mean, I used to do it and be like, snoozefest. Cause it was so easy to get it. And let's say today, it says in six words. But then I think I talked about this already. Dan Gore said him and his brother.

[Seth Meyers]

I'm going to cut you off real quick because I think I might kill myself if I listen to you talk about that anymore.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, right.

[Seth Meyers]

So, Jeff, our producer, just put in the chat that James from Doritos is a listener.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's just you asked, so that's just the only reason I was talking about it, because you asked, you fucking piece of shit. Sorry. Go on about Doritos.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, go back to host mode, Seth. Shut it down. Shut this motherfucker down.

[Seth Meyers]

All right, so, James from Doritos, our question is, are you okay getting on a zoom with us? We will screen share Jorma's magnum opus, the Normal Guy Doritos ad, and we will watch it together with you. We won't record you. We will discuss it afterwards, and then we'll bring it to the pod. We don't want to do anything that's gonna jam you up, James, but we would like to get this going.

[Andy Samberg]

I really like that we use this pod to talk specifically to one person.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, quaint army. You never know which day we're gonna talk to you.

[Andy Samberg]

Going through you guys.

[Jorma Taccone]

Hey, Quaid, what are you cooking? That Mac and cheese Quaid.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh. Oh, you're still talking to our Quaid.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, Quaido make that tea.

[Jorma Taccone]

Our boy, J. Quaid.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, our main Quaid.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, kind of the main Quaid at this point.

[Seth Meyers]

He's our main Quaid.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Only Quaid who's. Who's checked in so far.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, we're going to use this time because Keeva's coming.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

You know, a lot of times I think the fun thing about this pod is the first 15 minutes, the other three hosts think the fourth host is coming, and then we have to announce they actually are not.

[Andy Samberg]

Okay, that was my bad.

[Seth Meyers]

It was everybody's bad. I'm not pinning that on you, Jorm. So this is the podcast. Keev is coming, but I have another exciting update. I mean, there's a lot. I mean, Sam Ozerski from the Bee. He might be on soon. James from Doritos. We just asked him directly using the pod. I ran into Steve Martin again last night, and I said, we really do want you to come on the pod and talk about surf meeting.

[Jorma Taccone]

Whoa.

[Seth Meyers]

And he said he would happily do it. He doesn't know when it'll happen. You know, he's in the middle of shooting Murders Season five, Right. But I think he needs. He needs the Quaid army to bear witness to what we did to him. And I think it'll be really. I think it'll be really cathartic for him to work through it.

[Andy Samberg]

I love that. Can we see if Dennis Franz will get on the pod, too? I feel like he should talk about his book.

[Seth Meyers]

It would be very funny if Dennis Franz. This would be his return to, like, the public. He walked off the set from NYPD Blue and said, I'm gonna live a private life now. And then he held it all the way until he got invited to come onto Lonely Island. Sut Myers podcast.

[Andy Samberg]

And then he was like, I guess I really am retired. This proves it.

[Jorma Taccone]

I feel like the odds are low.

[Seth Meyers]

Low that he'll come on.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It'd be so fun if he just really wanted to talk about that episode and that moment and just how it worked. The shower scene, how it works.

[Andy Samberg]

I like to think that he's. He's still confused about what she was trying to do.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I don't know what the she was up to.

[Jorma Taccone]

I don't get. The blocking was wonky. What was that?

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, I was.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, we could grab a second. Look. It's the Bradley Cooper show, but really it's the I'm on a boat show. So we're gonna get there, but I. Can we take a second to just talk about some things in the Bradley Cooper Show?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes, please.

[Andy Samberg]

Totes.

[Seth Meyers]

There was a game show. Bradley Cooper hosted a game show called I'm going to have sex with your wife.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's right.

[Seth Meyers]

And he comes out very game show talk, very 70s. Like, game showy. Like that kind of. You get it?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

The three contestants are. Will Forte, super excited to be on the show. Fred Armisen, super excited to be on the show. And then he goes. And then our returning champ. And then it cuts to Bill, and Bill's super bummed out because Bill had been on the show last week. And now it's starting to dawn on you what happens in order to win the game show? I'm gonna have sex with your wife.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's starting to dawn on you. I mean, it is the name of the sketch.

[Seth Meyers]

It's starting to dawn on the late bloomers.

[Jorma Taccone]

Understood.

[Seth Meyers]

So Vorte is first. He walks over and does a little host band.

[Jorma Taccone]

Says here you run a PR firm in Cedar Rapids.

[Andy Samberg]

I sure do.

[Jorma Taccone]

Terrific. And I understand you brought your wife with here.

[Seth Meyers]

I sure did.

[Andy Samberg]

Hi, honey.

[Seth Meyers]

Hi. That's great.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's great. That's great. Now, Ron, I'm going to have sex with your wife.

[Seth Meyers]

I'D like to see you try. And then Michaela runs up and Bradley and her go off stage, and it's just hearing that same music. A single on forte. Well, he goes from, like, pretty confident to, like, definitely sure that his wife is having sex with the game show host. Yeah, yeah. All right, so then, three notable Update guests. Andy, you all remember when Michael Phelps got caught smoking weed?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, of course I remember that.

[Seth Meyers]

So my question to you is, you came on and commented as a famous person. What famous person did you come on and comment? Us.

[Jorma Taccone]

I'm going to assume it was Mark spitz.

[Seth Meyers]

It was 100% Mark Smitz.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, Keith's here. Keith, I just want to.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's our guy.

[Seth Meyers]

I just want to jump you right in. Can you hear us, Keith?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, I'm here. Hey. Hey.

[Seth Meyers]

Talking about three Update features. We have not talked about I'm on a boat yet. There were three update features. First one, let's see if you can get the question right that Andy just got right. Michael Phelps gets caught smoking weed. Andy plays a real person on Weekend Update. Commenting on it. What historical person did Andy Samberg. Come on? Historical. I just mean a real person.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, it.

[Seth Meyers]

Mark Spitz.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Mark Spitz.

[Seth Meyers]

You kind of played Mark Spitz as a skeevy guy, and I feel like Mark Spitz might have some issues with the way you chose to play it.

[Jorma Taccone]

I mean, it was all just like,'70s vibes.

[Seth Meyers]

It was all mustache and chest hair.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I would just like to flatly read some of the dialogue.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, by all means. I hope it's better than the stripper sketch from last week.

[Seth Meyers]

It is.

[Andy Samberg]

A flat read there, too.

[Seth Meyers]

I did kind of run it through, and I'm like, no, it's better. Okay. It's not great, but it's better.

[Andy Samberg]

That was. That was you thinking about it.

[Jorma Taccone]

I did text with Klein about the stripper sketch, and we were like, obviously we were still learning, and if we were to do it today, the nipples would have come out on page three, which is technically page two and a half.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, this is interesting because this is only a week later. So maybe this was the first step in your education.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, maybe. We fully cracked it. A week later.

[Seth Meyers]

You came right at it. You said, back in the day, I was known for my breaststroke, and I was a pretty good swimmer. To Zhang.

[Jorma Taccone]

Zhang, who wrote this?

[Seth Meyers]

I believe it's you and Melanian Jostle.

[Andy Samberg]

Heavy hitters.

[Seth Meyers]

Then you had this line. Let's just say a lot of girls laid their head at the Spitz Carlton.

[Jorma Taccone]

Geez.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, sure. The audience did not go with you on that one. Right.

[Jorma Taccone]

Because it's a long ass walk and their legs were tired.

[Seth Meyers]

And then you said. Then you tell. You explain to me Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers. Yeah, that works on two levels because Carlton is also what I call my penis.

[Jorma Taccone]

There you go. Fully landed the plane.

[Seth Meyers]

Thank you. And then I said, I don't think it works on either level. All right, now it's another trivia question you can ask. Follow up if you need clues.

[Jorma Taccone]

Okay, thank you.

[Seth Meyers]

This is during a financial crisis. The setup is no nation has experienced the economic crash worse than Iceland.

[Jorma Taccone]

Here to comment, wig as Bjork.

[Seth Meyers]

100%. Well done.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Wow.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Only Icelandic. I feel like that's the only Icelandic celebrity that has ever been portrayed on the show.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. It's historically notable to me in my personal life because she rolls out and says, greetings, snarf.

[Andy Samberg]

Greetings, Snarf.

[Seth Meyers]

How is your skeleton? Good. How. How's your skeleton?

[Andy Samberg]

It's itchy.

[Seth Meyers]

And from that day forward, our friend Neil Brennan has never called me anything other than snarf. What do you think, Snarf.

[Andy Samberg]

That's great, because now people can call you that on the street when they see you.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it made me very happy. And then the first question she asked me is, how's your skeleton? Pretty great. There's two Seth corners I'd like to talk about, then we'll get right into boat. Sing me in yorm Seth corner.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's been a minute since I sang.

[Andy Samberg]

This song, but here we go. Said, take it away.

[Jorma Taccone]

Were you bummed you didn't get asked to audition for snarf in the new Masters of the universe movie?

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, I'm bummed that I'm never asked to audition for anything.

[Jorma Taccone]

Okay, that's fair. So I can save the questions that are similar to that one. Moving forward, thank you for that info.

[Andy Samberg]

You had a bunch of them.

[Seth Meyers]

You had a lot. You had a bunch of. Are you bummed you weren't asked two questions?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. Yeah. Are you bummed you didn't get asked audition for a complete unknown? By the way, we never talked about. I'm derailing Seth's corner. I'm sorry.

[Seth Meyers]

That's fine. You know, it's all of our corners.

[Jorma Taccone]

Well, a long time ago, we talked about the Elvis auditions, which was really fun. And we didn't ever talk about what those complete unknown auditions must be like.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah. Who do you want to be? What actor do you want? Just do Andy. Come on. Hey, what's up, Andy?

[Jorma Taccone]

Hey, how's it going? Auditioning for Bob Dylan, complete unknown.

[Seth Meyers]

So excited. Hey, Quaid army, by the way.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, my God, that is so nice.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, we just love the pod and, you know, Gary over here said, you know, Andy's such a good singer, and I'm listening to the pod and I'm remembering all those old songs. So we're just so happy to get you in.

[Jorma Taccone]

Wow, warm room. I was not expecting that. Thank you very much. That helps me relax.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay, so whenever you're ready. And obviously pick whatever song you're most comfortable with.

[Jorma Taccone]

Okay, great. I'll leave. I'm just gonna go.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

As soon as it started.

[Seth Meyers]

Apologies for bringing you in.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yep, that was my bad.

[Andy Samberg]

Apologies for bringing you in.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Let me know if you need, like, a stoner in the background or something. Somebody who, like, he's really, like, rude to and then, like, gets the best of.

[Seth Meyers]

That's real. That's a real dream outcome for me because I knew exactly where that was going and it still was a full delay.

[Jorma Taccone]

I'm pretty sure I blew out the mic.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I didn't know the song choice.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, I didn't either.

[Jorma Taccone]

You know, it was gonna be Girl from the North Country. I didn't know that Girl from the North Country. I had the, like, a Talking Heads shuffle channel on this morning, and it started playing the one from With Johnny Cash when he stopped smoking.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Dylan stopped smoking.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, did that change his voice significantly?

[Jorma Taccone]

Well, yeah, I immediately yelled out, girl from the North Country. Everyone's favorite version.

[Seth Meyers]

It is, like, the best stop smoking ad of all time. You're like, wait, how long did he stop for for his voice to completely change?

[Jorma Taccone]

I think it's BS and he just decided to change it and make it sound like a Muppet. Yeah, it was an ad for smoking.

[Seth Meyers]

Lei Lady Lay. It's that voice, right?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. You're like, lay, lady lay.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Like, if I start smoking, how long till I have a cool, raspy voice?

[Seth Meyers]

You've got a good one. And we're going to get into your voice. I can tell you're fishing. We're going to be talking a lot about your voice, this podcast. So can we please.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, yeah. Maybe the most ham performance of Akiva's.

[Andy Samberg]

Career support for the Lonely island and Seth Meyers podcast comes from Airbnb. You know, recently I took a trip to Los Angeles, California, and I stayed at an Airbnb for five days. It was in the Valley. I'm not going to tell you where because then you might track my movements. It was great. It was Right across the street from a park. It was a really beautiful unit. And you know what it made me think? It made me think, man, I'm blowing it. I have a lovely place that I could be doing the same thing with. I would love to share it with the world. It's a great way for people to have lovely experiences. And what am I doing? I'm just blowing it because it feels like it's more of a vacation in an Airbnb. It's not a hotel. You don't have to feel like you're just visiting a city. You're living in a city. And anyway, I felt like I was really throwing money in the garbage and I was a fool. Your home could be worth more than you think. And you can find out how [e-mail].

[Seth Meyers]

Host support comes from Vuori. Hello, Yorm.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Woo.

[Andy Samberg]

Vuori, my fave.

[Seth Meyers]

Because you love versatility. Orm.

[Jorma Taccone]

Correct.

[Andy Samberg]

And I love the way it stretches.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Four way performance stretch.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes, that's it.

[Seth Meyers]

You're a big fan because it moves with you. No restriction.

[Andy Samberg]

Exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

You can't restrict Yorm. Yorm is too. You are too versatile as a person.

[Andy Samberg]

I'm unrestrictable.

[Seth Meyers]

That's right. Also breathable boxer brief liner. That's a big deal for you.

[Andy Samberg]

You're talking to my soul now.

[Seth Meyers]

I remember when you first started at snl. You would come in and I would say, why are you so upset? And you'd say, my pants don't have built in comfort and support daily on the delay. Look, this is fitness, versatility. It's one short every sport. It's great for any workout or activity.

[Andy Samberg]

Totally.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, Yorv and I are laughing because we're like, who doesn't know this now?

[Andy Samberg]

I know.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, we got to be preaching to the choir at this point.

[Andy Samberg]

Get on board, people, if you haven't already.

[Seth Meyers]

What's your favorite y. What's your favorite workout?

[Andy Samberg]

Me.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I like the squats. And then I also like the rope thing because nobody ever does it.

[Seth Meyers]

Does squats.

[Andy Samberg]

The squats. And then the rope thing, where you do the rope thing. Because everyone always thinks squats.

[Seth Meyers]

Vuor is an investment in your happiness. For our listeners. They're offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the [e-mail] Island. That's V U-O-R I.com island exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and condition. If Keev were here, he would tell you the true thing is this is the one the most he gets talked to by friends asking for a little extra percent off is Vuori. A lot of people who are already buying it, then they hear we got a Vuori Connect and they want more. 20 is not enough for them, I guess not only will you receive 20 off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over 75 in free returns. Go to vuori.com island and discover the versatility of Vori clothing exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. Hey Yoram, do you have a cat?

[Andy Samberg]

I did. I mean yes. Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

And Seth, when your cat comes back to life, Yoram, you're going to really want to give it Smalls cat food. Its protein packed recipes are made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door, Yoram. Great. Yoram, would you be surprised that cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food? Get 35% off plus an additional 50% off your first order. Head to smalls.com and use our promo code island for a limited time only.

[Andy Samberg]

You didn't let me answer yet. Yes, I knew that, Seth, but mar not. So that's great that you told me.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, well, guess what? I don't have a cat. Y but I have a dog that's basically the size of a cat. That's really immaterial. Smalls was started back in 2017 by a couple of guys home cooking cat foods in small batches for their friends. A few short years later, they've served millions of meals to cats across the U.S. i feel like a lot of times that breaks the other way where the guys doing like small batch cat food out of their garage ends badly.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, it doesn't go as well. These guys are killing it.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, this is also exciting. Smalls works with the Humane World for Animals. They've donated over a million dollars worth of food to help cats through the Humane World for Animals. And they even give you a chance to donate at checkout. Whether you donate $5 for flea and tick medications or $7 for vaccines. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time only because you're a lonely island. Seth Meyers listener, you can get 35% off smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order by using our code island. That's an additional 50% off when you head to smalls.com and use promo code Island Again, that's promo code island for an additional 50% off your first order, plus free [e-mail] Yoram could you just sing in real quick to remind people where we are right now?

[Andy Samberg]

This was the part of the show where Seth was supposed to be doing his corner. Take it away again.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a little bedlam spillover from those non Seth apps.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We're used to talking more now.

[Jorma Taccone]

Sorry about the melee and bedlam.

[Seth Meyers]

Too much bedlam. Too much melee.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seth hit us.

[Seth Meyers]

This was a perfect combination of two of my favorite things in my life when I was a child or were the Pittsburgh Steelers and Saturday Night Live. I was at the Super Bowl. I was there live with my parents when the Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals. Maybe the greatest play in super bowl history. James Harrison intercepts Kurt Warner, runs it back 99 yards. And then I write a weekend update feature where Keenan plays James Harrison, still breathing into an oxygen mask about how tired he was. And mostly just bring it up because it makes me very happy. I was just always like, oh, look, this is 13 year old Seth's perfect dream come true. I also read a sketch you were in Andy called a Bad Guys Good conversation with Bradley Cooper. Any memory?

[Jorma Taccone]

He was the Johnny from Karate Kid.

[Seth Meyers]

Talk show host. He was Johnny Lawrence. Can you name the three guests?

[Jorma Taccone]

I'm gonna assume I was Alan Rickman.

[Seth Meyers]

You were Hans Gruber. And it's a better impression than I remember.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes. Yeah, for once. And then who were the other two? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Almost certainly Bill as Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.

[Seth Meyers]

Jame Gumm. Yeah, 100%.

[Andy Samberg]

And.

[Seth Meyers]

It'S hard. I'm gonna jump in. You're not gonna get it. Mikayla Watkins as Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, fun.

[Seth Meyers]

It's very fun. I will say I wanted it to be better. Looking back. Sure didn't quite get past premise very.

[Jorma Taccone]

Much in the two first names talk show kind of sphere that we were doing that year.

[Seth Meyers]

And if the best memory of two first names is when it pops out to Kangals, Really a part of this that I forgot is while Johnny Lawrence, AKA Bradley Cooper, is doing a long intro, all of a sudden you hear Sudeikis scream, start the show. And it cuts to him and he's like the evil sensei from Karate Kid.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, God, I thought it was.

[Seth Meyers]

He's like the kind of Gelman from the Today Show. I'm sorry about Live with Regis, but he's, you know, wearing a headset and he's telling him to start the show.

[Jorma Taccone]

He's the sensei, though. He's not to put him in a body bag.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes. No, wait. He has put him in the body bag. He's the bad sensei.

[Jorma Taccone]

But the sensei doesn't say put him in the body bag. The buddy.

[Andy Samberg]

No, that's like Johnny or Joey or whatever the fuck. That's a different guy.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's the more agro. Second guy.

[Seth Meyers]

It's. His name is John Kreese. Whoever, whatever cared. I wrote it down. It's John Crease.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, he's like. He's like the shitty coach.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay. And the one thing I'll say that was really fun in watching it back is you have a really good Hans Gruber. But also Bill makes. Bill plays Buffalo Bill. Like a real kind of a guy who's having a lot of fun being on a talk show.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Jamie, why are you bad?

[Seth Meyers]

I'm a crazy person.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And I would say that he's.

[Seth Meyers]

He's. He's really loose, and it's good times.

[Jorma Taccone]

I remember liking that sketch.

[Akiva Schaffer]

John Kreese is the main bad guy, you know, is the sensei of Cobra Kai.

[Seth Meyers]

All right, well, guys, now, I mean, this is a giant one.

[Jorma Taccone]

Does he wear his khakis with a cuff and a crease?

[Andy Samberg]

Before we get into this.

[Jorma Taccone]

Before we get into this. Wait, Norm, shut up.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Shut up. But what is. But what is Denzel Washington's character in man on Fire? John Keefe.

[Seth Meyers]

Keefe.

[Jorma Taccone]

Keef.

[Seth Meyers]

Keith. Keith.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Keith.

[Andy Samberg]

Eddie's really excited.

[Jorma Taccone]

Keith, does he wear. Keith, does he wears khakis with a cuff and a crease?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes, John Kreese does.

[Seth Meyers]

Woo.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's that West Coast.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But I don't know the answer to this, but I know it's close. What is his character from man on Fire, Denzel. It's close to John Kreese, but what is it going to be?

[Seth Meyers]

Sound off in the comments.

[Jorma Taccone]

Steel hitting those switches on them lolos, girl.

[Akiva Schaffer]

She calls him Creasy the whole time.

[Andy Samberg]

Guys, can we. This is to. To John Creasy.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Wait, hold on. His name's John Creasy.

[Jorma Taccone]

Y. I want to apologize for telling you to shut up 17 times straight, really fast. That was up. And I was trying to get out my west side thing, and now I feel like. And I can't sleep because I did that to you, and I love you.

[Akiva Schaffer]

You're trying to sleep.

[Jorma Taccone]

I know I can do better, and I will do better.

[Andy Samberg]

This is the moment that I do wish people saw video because. And he's being really up on the mic and the video camera right now, and he looks great.

[Seth Meyers]

But, Andy, you can't just say cuff in a crease west side and think anybody knows what the fuck you're talking about. What are you talking about?

[Jorma Taccone]

Ask Keevan Yoram. They both know.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay, what is it?

[Akiva Schaffer]

I mean, it's some sort of like, Ice Cube, west side connection type of a thing. But I don't know the exact.

[Andy Samberg]

It's how you wear your khakis. I mean, why west side, by the way?

[Seth Meyers]

I like Andy, you were like, ask them. They know. And then just two real soft answers.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, I know the. The. The basic things, you know, it's the look that, like, Ice Cube and all the la. Kind of gangster people wear where it's like, you know, probably those Dickies khakis.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, but it's. It's like a uniform for west side Connection guys.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's in. Still Dre. That's the most. Oh, still Dre.

[Seth Meyers]

Thank you.

[Jorma Taccone]

And I still got Love of the Streets. Is the. Anybody? No one.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, of course.

[Jorma Taccone]

I guess I'm the fucking piece of dog shit. Idiot. Loser.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Just hard to access thoughts that fast sometimes. All right, now, I'm not trying to create another Anthony Edwards here, guys.

[Seth Meyers]

That's what I'm trying create.

[Jorma Taccone]

Another.

[Seth Meyers]

Another Doug Hauser Hauser situation.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Hauser. I'm just letting you know that the fictional character of John Kreese, who is the sensei of Cobra Kai, is named John Kreese. And then I'm assuming for SAG reasons, John W. Creasy.

[Jorma Taccone]

He added the W. Man on Fire.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Creasy is Denzel Washington, AKA Creasy Bear.

[Jorma Taccone]

Creasy Bear, yeah, we love that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

As he's referred to by Dakota Fanning because that's like his manny, you know?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

While they're down in Mexico or somewhere. And you know, he's her bodyguard. I don't have to tell you about it. You've seen man on Fire. But anyways, the names are very similar.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Keith. On a related note, what does Creasy Bear wish that that one guy had more time?

[Akiva Schaffer]

See, now that I'll know.

[Jorma Taccone]

I thought you were going to perform it.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I wish you had more time. But he's the one that's going to blow him up.

[Jorma Taccone]

I know. Then he kills him. It's so tight.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Why? He could make his own wish come true, I guess.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, I'm just looking at the IMDb page, Keev, and I'm worried about this is continuing because Christopher Walken in the film is named Paul Rayburn. Need I remind everybody, in the last episode, Christopher Walken hosted There was the Greased Lightning sketch where he kept saying, change the lyrics to Gene Rayburn. So we're probably just living in a singularity at this point.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, and you're talking about Christopher Walken, who played Iago and also was in.

[Seth Meyers]

A Laser Cats, right? And yeah, he played Iago in Othello.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Famously.

[Seth Meyers]

Currently Othello right now.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And Famously was not in the Laser Cats.

[Seth Meyers]

Famously. Not yet.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Maybe he's for the movie.

[Seth Meyers]

I guess it would be really funny if Lauren asked Denzel to host, and Denzel said, I don't want to host, but I'll do a Laser Cats. And then Lauren had to pretend that you guys were still working on the show. Oh, yeah, that's the fellas, like Lauren, hat in hand, coming to you guys to do a Laser Cat.

[Andy Samberg]

Wait, you guys, I still have something to say. And we can.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, that's right. We have been sort of steamrolling you. Yoram.

[Andy Samberg]

We can. We can put this at the beginning, but before we get into this cool digital show.

[Seth Meyers]

I like that you said you're so confident. You think whatever you're about to say we're going to put at the beginning.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, we might want to, because it's about last week's episode, which was great. I thought I was very enjoyable to listen to. You guys were very entertaining. It did go a little off the rails. I will say Seth did a very bad job keeping it on the. On the tracks. But I got a voice note from Simon Rich that I'm going to play for you guys right now. It's very, very the photographer or the.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Cinematographer who we see.

[Andy Samberg]

We see in the mirror for a second. Simon Rich, wonderful comedy writer. Here he is.

[Seth Meyers]

This is Simon Rich. I can confirm that I did indeed play the role of cameraman in Laser Cats 4. I'm very proud of my work. The confirmation in this film, I can also confirm that I provided my own wardrobe. That's definitely one of the three shirts that I owned at the time, along with the pants and shoes that I wore each day.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Okay.

[Andy Samberg]

I told you it was gonna be short.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Clearing up. Clearing up some controversy from last week about the pants and the shoes.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. There was a part of me that was hoping he was gonna end right after. I can confirm I was the cameraman.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Thank you.

[Jorma Taccone]

No one asked, but thank you.

[Seth Meyers]

Also, I like, just like you are throwing full breaks on the pod to be like, I got breaking news.

[Jorma Taccone]

Hold on to your hat, sailors.

[Andy Samberg]

There you go, guys.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Thank you.

[Andy Samberg]

Hey, you know, if you ask somebody to do a V, you gotta Play that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. It was very good. Thank you, Simon.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, get your towels ready.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's about to go down. Everybody in the place, hit the deck.

[Seth Meyers]

But stay on your toes.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We running this. Let's go.

[Seth Meyers]

So I'm on a boat.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

This is an album song.

[Andy Samberg]

Mm.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, our album's coming out. Right. So what's the date of the episode?

[Jorma Taccone]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

But you had. But, like, who. Who paid for it?

[Akiva Schaffer]

The video was fully the record label, so that.

[Seth Meyers]

I guess that's what I meant by album song, because it's label money. And you can see it immediately.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Andy Samberg]

You can see that we're in Miami, so that would. It would have been hard to shoot that in New York.

[Jorma Taccone]

I mean, how thorough do we want to get this is?

[Akiva Schaffer]

I think people want us to get very thorough.

[Jorma Taccone]

Easily one of, if not our biggest song ever.

[Seth Meyers]

I will say, listening to it again today, I realize because watching the video, I had forgotten a lot of things in the video, and I think one of the reasons is how often I will just listen to this song without watching it as a short. It's. It needs the visuals the least of any of your songs.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's possibly musically the best song that we've done.

[Andy Samberg]

I think that's probably true.

[Jorma Taccone]

Right.

[Andy Samberg]

Can we talk about just how it came about? Sure.

[Seth Meyers]

Get into it.

[Andy Samberg]

Since it's still. Since it's still a fucking thorn in my side.

[Jorma Taccone]

Go ahead, guys. Sorry.

[Seth Meyers]

Ormy full thorn.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yorm was out of town for the weekend or something while we were recording incredibad.

[Andy Samberg]

That is correct.

[Seth Meyers]

So this is. Wait, would you say this section of the pod is called Yorm Thorns?

[Andy Samberg]

And that's going to be a reoccurring section, guys.

[Seth Meyers]

All right, so Y thorns go.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes. Okay. So these.

[Jorma Taccone]

No, no, no, no. What's the theme song, dude?

[Andy Samberg]

Y thorn these guys.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, that's good. Get that out.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. We're back. We're back in Encino. We're back in the episode about incredibab when we skipped I'm on a Boat. So all the things from that still track for this.

[Jorma Taccone]

As mentioned, you know, part of us getting a record deal was receiving tons of real beats from actual producers. And one of our first bundles of them had a bunch from this dude, Wishmaster, and this beat immediately we singled out. I remember personally being like, we absolutely have to do some idea to this beat. It's so fucking rad. We loved it.

[Andy Samberg]

So I was around for that part of listening to that beat and being like, oh, shit, this is fucking smash. And the reason I was out of town was because it was my anniversary. And so I went up. I don't know where we went to. I don't remember that part, but. But I came back like two days later and these guys had basically completed the entire song. And the first thing I said was, that's a hit. You gotta let me on that. And they were both like, absolutely not.

[Akiva Schaffer]

The song was done.

[Andy Samberg]

It was a pretty. It was pretty unanimous. And I was like, what?

[Seth Meyers]

The only thing that would make it better is if you had thought of the beat. The entirety of your, like, anniversary. And you came home and you're like, I've got it. It's called Cinnamon Swirl.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, I will say the dynamic of that song and the music video in particular has continued to haunt me in a loving way. I would say for the rest of our careers of now I'm the landlubber who wears a dunce cap. That's a landlubber. And we've put it into concerts now. I was at the video being ostracized. And so it's a joke that keeps on giving to these guys.

[Jorma Taccone]

Anyway, so the conceiving of it was not super interesting as it never is. But I remember our friend John Silk was visiting the house. He's an executive at Netflix now. We grew up together in Berkeley. He just happened to be visiting and he can vouch he was in the room. We were playing that beat and I just started yelling, I'm on a boat. And I remember Keev started laughing and I started laughing. And we were like, I guess that's the premise. And it was, you know, obviously there was a lot of boat stuff in rap videos at that moment in time. Yeah, especially. Cause that Miami scene was really popping off and we loved that. And we're really engaging with it a lot as listeners and viewers of videos.

[Andy Samberg]

Name some tracks that we liked at.

[Jorma Taccone]

The time we taken over kind of all the Khalid Akon T Pain shit that was happening down there. Rick Ross and Lil Wayne was obviously guesting on a lot of those songs.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Y It was definitely a trope of the moment in that era of champagne and big boats. That was kind of of the moment.

[Andy Samberg]

Was it. What am I wrong in saying that Big Pimpin was shot on that boat? I similar Yach.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I don't think it was that boat. No, there may. Maybe an AON video was shot on the exact one we used. But it might be just that we did on our location scout. Looked at a few different boats and one of them was an acon boat. I don't know that we rented the acon boat.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. Y. I can't remember.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I don't think we did. I think the acon boat had a helicopter on the back. Like, on the boat.

[Seth Meyers]

Did it write fast when you had the idea?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Fast enough to exclude Yorm?

[Andy Samberg]

Well, yeah. They knew I was coming back, so they had to get it in. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, shit, we got, like, 15 minutes.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's definitely a song we did not overthink. And we weren't like, what's the other twist to it? We were like, yeah, that's the chorus. Now let's just start writing. And we definitely wrote our own verses, and I doubt even helped each other on them at all. Honestly just said, all right, write about being on a boat. And then we both just did. And sometimes I do. On new songs that we're trying to crack, sometimes I try to hearken back to that of, like, we don't need to always think of three twists. Like, sometimes if the premise is good and the song sounds good, maybe we should just go straight at it and just do the simplest version. And sometimes that happens, and sometimes it doesn't.

[Andy Samberg]

But especially with a title like that, like, when it's a song that is just like, hey, this is the premise. Exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

I also think it weirdly counts as heightening by the fact that they don't ever switch to anything else. Correct.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's like, who said we're whack? But musically crazier.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Where it's like part of the joke is doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down, and never stopping.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And then can't get over the fact that they're on this boat and that they're bragging about it.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, it's also. It's also Turtled Neck and Chain, which is another one that came from just stomping around the room saying something. Like, occasionally that is how songs come about by just one of us just repeating something. Are there any other songs that are like that?

[Jorma Taccone]

I'm sure we have, like, 50 just.

[Andy Samberg]

Saying something and then, like, I guess that's a song.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Sushi Gloria was a version of that.

[Seth Meyers]

Have you. I guess my question is, have you guys ever done two in a row that weren't that.

[Jorma Taccone]

Thank you, Seth.

[Seth Meyers]

What about. Was this song nominated for a Grammy?

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes, absolutely. You're jumping way ahead, but yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, I just feel like I. You know, again, I want to talk about quality, and I was reading comments, and that was something that was said. So what was the. What Was it nominated for.

[Jorma Taccone]

It was.

[Andy Samberg]

Yhormthorn. Another yhormthorn.

[Jorma Taccone]

We gave you writing credit.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, we did. You were nominated for that Grammy.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, that's true.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. You didn't even show up.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, I still. Yeah, I didn't show up for the Grammy.

[Seth Meyers]

It was your anniversary weekend. It was our ha. It was our half anniversary.

[Andy Samberg]

No, I was.

[Jorma Taccone]

Seven anniversaries a year.

[Andy Samberg]

No, I was raising money for Mari's play. And so were you. Seth. The reason I wasn't at the Grammys is because I was doing.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Me and Andy had a great time. You can look up the photos of us there. We were having a blast. Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

We wore our sunglasses the whole time. Because it was rock and roll.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Because we were part. We were now. Well, if you jump into the Grammys for a second, we were nominated under best rap sung collaboration against songs like Run this Town.

[Jorma Taccone]

We were literally up against Run this Town, which, thank God, won.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes. I don't know if anyone's ever gone to the Grammys hoping to lose more where we were like, if we win, we can't get on stage. We were only confident enough to go because we were that sure that we were going to lose.

[Seth Meyers]

Correct. You're right. That might have been a weird tipping point that you wouldn't have recovered from.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Agreed. We were in the wrong category.

[Jorma Taccone]

We were a little salty about not being nominated for comedy album.

[Seth Meyers]

Right.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

Because we. I believe we had had the biggest selling comedy album of the year. And as everyone knows, if you sell a lot, that means it's high quality.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But it is true. We had the number. We did have the number one, like, Billboard album. A comedy chart album for, like, incredible was number one for two years. Yeah. I think until our next album came out.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's right.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And then they nominated us, which let us know they knew we existed.

[Seth Meyers]

But then you guys lost. Comedy album. The Rick Ross. That was his album of impressions.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And he was fine getting on stage.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. But it was. That was good. It was. It was good, though. He was really good.

[Jorma Taccone]

I will say, I remember hitting the carpet for the Grammys.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

And we bumped into T Pain and we were so excited to see him. Of course we love him. And before he said anything, we were like. I know, I know. He's like, dude. Because we hadn't talked since we got nominated, and we were like, oh, man, this is not a good look. And he was like, you know how many songs I did this year? This is the one that got nominated. We were like, we know. We're Sorry. It's because we're white.

[Andy Samberg]

I will say the. The fear, though, the fear that you must have had is because of Pain, because that would be the only reason that I think it would have crossed the finish line. And maybe.

[Jorma Taccone]

I mean, it was never. It was never going to be around this town that's such a smash.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. We never for a second thought we'd win, which was, again, a relief in why we could take the whole day as kind of a fun joke that we were there as musicians and just wear. I think I wore the tux from the video and just put it on.

[Jorma Taccone]

But I will say everyone else that had a good rap song collaboration that year. Sorry.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Somebody else could have used that. That slot.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Did any other people from the rap world engage with you that night on, like, how they liked the song?

[Akiva Schaffer]

I don't think we really bounced around asking people, hey, what'd you think about ours?

[Seth Meyers]

Hi, I'm Kiva.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We're like you now.

[Seth Meyers]

You might remember me from the video where I was wearing this exact same outfit exactly.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I dressed in my costume so that you'd recognize me.

[Andy Samberg]

You know, I feel like what goes over great at the Grammys is insecurity, you know?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I remember, though, like, you couldn't buy a drink there. And T. Pain had some way of getting us them, so we did end up. Because we were sitting with him, so we did end up very nicely. He was sending some assistant type person, and he was like, you guys want some? Getting, like, Jack and Cokes or something.

[Andy Samberg]

Was he. Was he still on Apple Jacks? Because he's the only guy I have ever seen drink applejacks.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was. Not that I remember it being. The reason I remember being Jack and Coke is because I remember when Pink was up in the rafters doing her. What's it called when you do that? The. Essentially the ballet up on the ropes. Not ropes, but like, oh, yeah, she killed it. It was amazing. She's singing her whole thing, you know, 50ft above us, but glitter was raining down from her, and it got into my drink.

[Andy Samberg]

And that's why Yarmthorn here's another yhormthorn digging it into his side. I'm so fucking glad you guys had such a good time. Seriously.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, it did not a great time. Keef got fucking glitter in his drink.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, that's true. He did have glitter in his drink. Shit, that sucks, dude.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I still drank it.

[Jorma Taccone]

Keeve didn't do this during Jizz in My Pants. I'm just saying.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Or I just had sex. Coming up soon.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Be classy. Take a note from your good friend Keev.

[Andy Samberg]

Yo, yo, be classy, bro.

[Jorma Taccone]

Be classy.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, so we. So we filmed it in Miami because we were like, we have a label. We have a few off weeks. Because it's the back half of the schedule. So it was whatever the off weeks were before February 7th.

[Seth Meyers]

Timeline. If I can interrupt the timeline real quick. When did T Pain get involved? Like, how soon did he sign on to be in it?

[Akiva Schaffer]

We recorded in the summer. It was obviously Andy doing the chorus. We reached out to T Pain and he said, yes, in the summer. But we did not get him on the track for months and months. It was one of those things where it's like, he's in. And then we were like, cool. And then we could not get him to record because he was just on his own timeline and probably realized SNL's on the fastest timeline.

[Andy Samberg]

And Keev. And Keev or Andy. When did T Pain. The thought of T Pain occur to us just because I think it's a fun.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Immediately just the beat alone, we were probably like, this sounds like the kind of thing that T Pain's the number one person you'd want singing the.

[Seth Meyers]

Right.

[Andy Samberg]

But also when he came to the show, though.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, good memory. Yes. The reason we thought he might say yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

So when T Pain came with Mariah Carey, we had met him in the hallway and we were fans of his, but we didn't think he had any clue who we were. But then he saw us and he did the Ultimate Punch from Hot Rod in the hallway. And we all went, what? And he went, ultimate Punch. And we were like, oh, shit, we love this dude. And obviously within a minute, we're like, we would love to do a song with you. And he was like, just let me know. So we knew he was down, which is our favorite thing and has led to many collaborations, because people say that. So we go, let's write towards them then if we know that they want to do one.

[Seth Meyers]

And he came. He was at Radio City.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, he did the 50th.

[Seth Meyers]

He was great, which was fantastic. I think that was like, extra special. When he came out, I was like, oh, yeah, no, I wouldn't have wanted to see somebody else do this part.

[Jorma Taccone]

Absolutely.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We also did it with him live at Summerfest in Milwaukee.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Akiva Schaffer]

When we did our. And on our tour, he just happened to be there doing his own set. And then we were like, we're going to be there too. And so he stuck around and came and did it with us.

[Jorma Taccone]

Didn't he also come when we did the San Francisco one?

[Andy Samberg]

Did he?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes, because he was the. He was doing the stage next to us, after us.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

When we did our very, very, very first concert at clusterfest in San Francisco the year before our tour, he came and did it with us live.

[Andy Samberg]

And I feel like every time we see him, he's onto a different signature kind of drink that he's drinking, which I always appreciate about anybody.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, it's nice that he has the ability to change, you know, and more and grow.

[Seth Meyers]

All right, so now it's Miami.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, so our album's coming out February 10th. This episode is February 7th, so we know it's the one that we want to put out to get everyone's attention to the record.

[Jorma Taccone]

We did. Yeah. We had written the whole album. And generally speaking, like, the head of our label was like, that one sounds pretty good. Like, everyone was sort of like, you should do a video for that one.

[Seth Meyers]

And you all agreed, like, you all knew this was the one.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. I will say, Yorm.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

I don't want to stir up shit.

[Andy Samberg]

No, no. You always say this, but you're confusing me with Mr. Neal Brennan. But go.

[Jorma Taccone]

No, no, no. That's something different.

[Andy Samberg]

Okay.

[Jorma Taccone]

I remember you saying, it sounds good, but you didn't think it was that funny.

[Andy Samberg]

I don't remember saying that, but I more remember saying, that's a smash. Can you please put me on it? And then you guys got kicking me out of the room.

[Jorma Taccone]

And it's crazy because I don't remember any of that.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

My guess on the timeline is this, Andy Yorm said, this is a smash. Can you put me on it? And then you guys said, no. And then your said, well, good, because I don't even think it's funny.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's not funny anyway. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure.

[Andy Samberg]

That's why I think that's Seth has broken it down accurately.

[Seth Meyers]

Like, you didn't even give it a beat. Yoram, you were just, like. Immediately, like, whoa. Good news for you.

[Andy Samberg]

No, no, no, Andy. I do think that I did probably say something like that and was trying to punch up certain parts. And I think that we tried to. Because we always try to respect the third guy who maybe doesn't fully see it. And then we retracted everything. That was trying to be more funny. I believe that is what happened.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We did try some goofier lines. I can't remember what they were or where they were, but I do remember trying them and then erasing them.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, I.

[Seth Meyers]

My. My experience with it today is I watched the uncensored first, which doesn't have the SNL laughs, and then I watched the actual feed from the episode. And it's interesting because it doesn't have that thing Lazy Sunday has. There's really no break to laugh, definitely. And so there's a. When we start going through the song, I'll say a couple of the laughs. And it also, like, it's just so good that people are. I don't think even. I think they get out of, like, comedy head for it. And you realize how funny it is the second or third time you watch it.

[Jorma Taccone]

I think there's a part of it that. Again, the doubling down and tripling down, but also the relentlessness of it. There's a moment two thirds of the way through where it's clearly the moment in another song where it's supposed to go back to the chorus, and instead we just do get the fuck up. This boat is real and straight back into verse.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

But the horns come in like it's a chorus, but we don't stop. Just doing verse stuff where it's like the whole song is basically one continuous hockey stick, to use the Silicon Valley terminology. Just goes up, up, up, up, up, and then ends.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

And there's no, like, peaks and valleys.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It, like, blossoms with t. Pain getting to do a verse and then it ends.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, exactly.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It also starts with a chorus and ends. It's just bookended choruses. Right. There's nothing in the middle at all.

[Seth Meyers]

Correct.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We just do I'm on a boat twice.

[Jorma Taccone]

It's a weird format for sure, but I remember us being like, I guess that's okay. We just like how it sounds.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

And it's also really short.

[Seth Meyers]

You ran a boat like that. I'm assuming you're on the clock the.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Minute I could give you the very quick rundown of what I remember on a production level, which is it's the weeks before we know that this is our target, to try to have it come on this show so that it'll support the record. We had already even sent the song to itunes, and it was gonna. Songs came out on Tuesday back then, so we knew the song was gonna come out Tuesday of this week. So it was already out as a single on itunes previous to the video coming out, just, you know, by four days, five days. And we decided to go down to Miami because we wanted to look legit and we had done Jizz My Pants and we knew it was possible. We had planned a two day shoot and T. Pain had confirmed and we were very excited. And then days before, he was on tour with Lil Wayne and they were in Canada and they got snowed in and they were afraid that if he came to our shoot, he would not be able to fly back to Canada and that he'd get fined a ton for missing a night of the tour. And so we were down in Miami. We went for an extra few days because we were going to shoot MTV bumpers as well, you know, because we're on a label and they're setting up cool promo stuff. So we went down to Miami and we're going to have five days in Miami, even though the shoot was only going to be two. So we could do MTV promos, which we had devised with some other guys that did a great job. They were. I wish I could remember their names and give them credit because I actually. It's one of the few things we've ever done with other people where I was like, hey, they did an amazing job. And it was the premise.

[Seth Meyers]

And I Didn't they mean shout out, shout out to their other collaborators?

[Akiva Schaffer]

They did. Honestly, they. They were people probably hired for IMTV or worked for MTV that did their little promos that would like in their minds, they said is $7 million of free ads. Because it was basically a full week where you'd be the thing bumping you out to commercials in back of every MTV show, like throughout the whole week. And it was daytona spring break, 88 was the theme. And it was like we were at a wild 80s MTV spring break. And I'm sure you can find them online.

[Seth Meyers]

I remember those now. Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So we got to have a really fun week in Miami and back to the plane thing. All of a sudden it was like the whole thing was about to fall apart. So our budget, I forget what it was, but we had to take essentially half of it to a private jet for Payne to get him down and get him back. And so it became a one day shoot, maybe a day before the shoot. So we had to collapse a two day shoot into a single day shoot.

[Andy Samberg]

Right before shooting we had like a really skeletal second unit kind of second day, like which I think we had like three hours on. But it was like real fucking bare bones. Like maybe like the camera was just still with us.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But it was like one way we achieved it is that the one day became like a 16 hour day. Like an insane day.

[Jorma Taccone]

It was insanely long.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And we had two cameras which we weren't going to have music videos. Would almost never need two cameras because you're always looking at the camera. So you'd have to. You can't have. Not like a movie set where you're Right. So there's no need for a second camera. But two cameras allowed us to break apart and be shooting. Let's say Andy's single on the boat. Talking about, you know, with the mission accomplished sign. Let's say at the exact same time as Jorma. Making copies.

[Seth Meyers]

Making copies. Right?

[Andy Samberg]

That's right. That's right. I do remember I wasn't even allowed on the boat. That was so cool.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That was for the SNL audience to kind of catch it, you know, keep it classy.

[Seth Meyers]

Support comes from soul. Hey Yorm.

[Andy Samberg]

Hi Seth.

[Seth Meyers]

Are you sick of drinking your calories or waking up hungover? Having some drinks can be fun. You and I like a cocktail.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh yeah, all of them. All the different kinds.

[Seth Meyers]

You and Timothy Oliphant will have a couple cocktails in Helsinki.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, right. That episode. I barely remember that because I was so. Had so many cocktails.

[Seth Meyers]

So there's an alternative though, to cocktails. And there's an alternative, thankfully, to the headache, the hangover the next day out of Office gummies from Sole. Sole is a wellness brand Yorm that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Sol specializes in delicious hemp derived THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of office gummies were designed to provide a mild relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. Yarm, I like taking a little out of office gummy and feeling, you know, just a relaxing buzz.

[Andy Samberg]

I'm more of an in office guy, but out of office sounds good too.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, you have a home office so it would be perfectly appropriate.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's true.

[Andy Samberg]

So it's fine for me either way.

[Seth Meyers]

You can take an out of office gummy in your home office.

[Andy Samberg]

That's true.

[Seth Meyers]

You can also try their out of Office beverage. A refreshing alcohol free alternative, perfect for summer sipping. Ah, can't wait for some summer sips.

[Jorma Taccone]

Woo.

[Seth Meyers]

Also, all of Sol's products are made from organically farmed USA grown hemp. They're vegan, gluten free, low in sugar. Bring on the good vibes. Treat yourself to Sole today. Right now, Sole is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsoul.com and use the code Island. That's getsoul.com promo code island for 30% off.

[Andy Samberg]

Bring on the good vibes.

[Seth Meyers]

Support comes from Coop Yorm.

[Andy Samberg]

A new one. I'm excited.

[Seth Meyers]

There's side sleepers, back sleepers, and even starfishes. Do you know how a starfish sleeps, Yorm?

[Andy Samberg]

I think on its tummy. Is that a tummy?

[Seth Meyers]

No. It sleeps all your arms and legs out. And then if someone cuts it off in the middle of the night, it grows back.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, okay. You learned something new, you guys.

[Seth Meyers]

Coop sleep goods are perfect for me because I am a side sleeper. And now I've got an adjustable pillow, crescent.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, wait, is this the pillow that we were actually sent? Because I love this pillow. I'm not kidding. This is fantastic.

[Seth Meyers]

No, we sent you a different pillow.

[Andy Samberg]

I love the crescent pillow. I'm gonna go off on this. Seth. Love the crescent pillow. I don't know if it wicks moisture, but whatever it is, I find it cool, comforting. It fits my head just right. I am not Josh in here, people. Real good pillow.

[Seth Meyers]

Real good pillow. And you know, obviously anybody who listens to the pod knows that Yorm is the most well rested of any of us. You spend a third of your life in bed. Shouldn't you get a pillow that's customized to your sleep? Upgrade your pillows with Coop. Visit coopsleepgoods.com island to get 20% off your first order. That's C-O-O-Psleepgoods.com Island. You're going to get 100. This is exciting. 100 night free trial Yoram. That's no small thing.

[Andy Samberg]

No, that's better than 90.

[Seth Meyers]

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[Akiva Schaffer]

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[Jorma Taccone]

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[Akiva Schaffer]

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[Jorma Taccone]

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[Akiva Schaffer]

Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast. Terms apply.

[Seth Meyers]

So keep going with the shoot. And then before we talk about the song, I do want to say my favorite memory of the song is Andy's bachelor party in Las Vegas. Do you remember this, Andy?

[Jorma Taccone]

Why you gotta keep bringing up my bachelor party?

[Seth Meyers]

I'm just saying it was the best. My favorite moment of the Bachelor because it was your Absolute nightmare. It was where the DJ said at the club, hey, everybody, make some noise for Adam Sandberg.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

So first loudly called you Adam Sandberg. And the needle dropped. I'm on a boat.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's right.

[Seth Meyers]

Fucking spotlighted you. You were at your absolute. Like, just a total valley for you. And then that song started, and it was. No part of it was comedy. Like, that club went off, right.

[Jorma Taccone]

People did get excited.

[Seth Meyers]

You know, it's not like we're, you know, I don't know, dancing to, like, eat it. You know what I mean? It's just fully a fucking banger.

[Jorma Taccone]

I mean, the night after we shot the video, we went out to a club and the dude who was showing us around had the DJ at the club put it on.

[Seth Meyers]

Wow.

[Andy Samberg]

At a place that they will have like that kind of premiere. Like, let's see how this plays before it comes out. So they're literally like. I remember there's like people in glass elevators. It was like a real Miami scene. People dancing on top of tables and shit. And they put it on like, oh, shit. So we're looking around the club being like, how's this gonna play? This new song that no one's ever heard with T. Pain on it. And it was a real fucking moment in our lives.

[Jorma Taccone]

It went pretty good. Yeah. People did not stop dancing.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, they're not hearing. It's a joke. They're just hearing that great beat. And then some guys kind of squawk in raps that they can't quite tell what they're saying. And then T. Pain singing and what's the difference?

[Jorma Taccone]

Might as well have just played the beat raw and people would have kept dancing.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We do. We get reports this and like, I just had sex gets played, like, in Thailand. Like, friends will continually. Once a year will get a text from someone randomly who's on tour somewhere in Vietnam or Thailand will go, dude, I was just at a place and I just had sex with playing non ironically at a disc in a real place.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And then you're like, why are you in Thailand? And they're like, I don't want to talk about it.

[Jorma Taccone]

Do BTS for White Lotus.

[Akiva Schaffer]

This would play in Australia. Apparently I'm on a boat would play on like, Australian MTV just in rotation.

[Seth Meyers]

But it would play backwards, right?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Is that how it works? Of course, yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Because it's down under. Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

So dope.

[Akiva Schaffer]

The boats would be going the other way.

[Andy Samberg]

Just like their toilets.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, how fast did. Were you then ready with something like this? I had a question, Keith. Did the unedited version go on YouTube right away.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

So you never put up the SNL one?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, we knew even if it didn't air on snl, we were putting it out no matter what, because we owned it, essentially, the label did. And the album was coming out, so we needed the promotion. It needed to come out one way or another.

[Seth Meyers]

Right.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We were releasing it.

[Seth Meyers]

So this isn't a case of either or because it was always ready for release.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Exactly. So we were ready with both right off the bat.

[Jorma Taccone]

By the way, it was fun as fuck. Like, the stress of condensing the shoot was stressful. But then we were like in Miami shooting a music video. It was really cool with a helicopter and a yacht.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I wish I remembered our wardrobe guy's name who was our tour down there too. He was.

[Andy Samberg]

So you're talking about Max Pierre, my friend. Amazing that you don't remember that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

What a great name, Max.

[Jorma Taccone]

He was great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Also.

[Andy Samberg]

The reason that I remember it is because I went back to Miami with three other couples and myself, who are all people with kids. And I was like, we gotta hang out with this guy named Max Pierre, who's the best. And at the time, he was a ambassador for Hennessy Black. So everywhere he took us to, which was all like the most high end clubs, we had to do shots of Hennessy Black. And I was like, my life is pretty cool.

[Jorma Taccone]

That's the best.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But yeah, he's the one that played the song and he's the one that, like had access everywhere and knew everything to do. And it was such a blast getting to see Miami.

[Seth Meyers]

Max Pierre. Accent or no accent?

[Jorma Taccone]

No accent. Yeah, no accent.

[Seth Meyers]

Could see that breaking either.

[Jorma Taccone]

Not French. We went to Joe's Crab Shack, which was bomb as.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes, well, also. And there was a hotel that Payne wanted to stay at. We didn't know where to stay, so we were just like. Just put us at the hotel he requested. So we were at this really nice hotel.

[Jorma Taccone]

I want to say it was the Mandarin or something.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I think it was just the Mandarin on Biscayne Bay.

[Jorma Taccone]

But I remember us pulling in and there were like two bright yellow Lamborghinis or something parked in front. And we were like, oh, shit. And then we were like, you see those? And he's like, those are mine.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We were. We were just living the fantasy life of I'm on a boat for the well, also. And then being like, sorry, we gotta go do an MTV thing where we're pretending to be Daytona. Screen break. But it was a weird reality folding in the way that Beastie Boys must have experienced a little bit where even though we weren't going to do any debauchery, we were pretending debauchery for an entire day with young people in bathing suits acting like you're doing screen break. So we were doing, like, a fantasy camp version.

[Andy Samberg]

Like, we're really cool guys.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. But none of it's real. We were doing all the same things with the boats and the champagnes and the nightclubs and the. And the MTV spring break, and we're filming it really for mtv. So the reality was, like. It was like, cosplaying at the highest level.

[Seth Meyers]

Guys. We hinted at it earlier. Andy, you're great. In this fucking best of Keev, he.

[Jorma Taccone]

Goes so fucking hard.

[Seth Meyers]

You know, I remember talking to Liz when it came out, and Liz was like, I think this is the most into my husband I've ever been.

[Andy Samberg]

Ooh, Really? I thought it was just two guys that she liked, but yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Nah, this is. I mean, it's nuts how great you are in this, Keef.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. They invented the term ham because of this. They saw Keev doing it, and they were like, whoa, that guy's hard as a motherfucker.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Look how nicely we've got Yoram to be so involved in it that he feels like he's part of it to the audience. This is a video. Well, it wasn't quite a video invention, but it was an invention of the. No, it is, right? It's not on the album. The free boat ride thing, that's not on the album, right?

[Seth Meyers]

No.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So we invented an entire new concept in to include Yorm that helps the whole video. When we were working on the video, we went, oh, here's how we do it. And it actually is the premise of the video now and taints the whole thing in a good way. Taint sounds negative.

[Seth Meyers]

It's historically negative.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It paints it.

[Jorma Taccone]

There's no such thing as a good taint. Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

How about paints? Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

[Jorma Taccone]

I have many pos connotations with taint.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, my God.

[Jorma Taccone]

Okay, go on.

[Andy Samberg]

And I got to. I got to be involved in other ways, too, because for, like, all of our albums, I do the clean versions of them. I sort of, you know, remove all the curse words. So I got to remove all of Kiva's curse words. He says it 16 times. He says the word fuck 16 times. So in a way, I was really.

[Seth Meyers]

Involved just rhyming motherfucker with motherfucker right out of the. Out of the gates.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, that's one of those Complex Eminem style.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Rhymes the word before. Rhymes.

[Andy Samberg]

It's.

[Seth Meyers]

Can I just say, I had forgotten there's a Santana champ ref in this.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

We had an arc to the album.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We shipped it down too. It's in the vid. We were like, oh, my God, we gotta get some. And it was hard to find.

[Seth Meyers]

These are things I had forgotten. I had forgotten there was a reference to George W. Bush. We do a Mission Accomplished banner. But it's on my visual.

[Andy Samberg]

A visual.

[Seth Meyers]

A visual reference. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Thank you. I was like, I don't remember that part.

[Seth Meyers]

There's another thing I really liked watching the video back, which, again, historically, I haven't added that element to my re listens. It's all about, like champagne and boats and tuxedos and also hamburgers. Oh, yeah, it's very funny. Like, there's this real, like, sort of low end thing with hamburgers. Like every time it cuts back to Kyiv, he's like holding up two hamburgers like it's diamonds.

[Akiva Schaffer]

They've never been on a boat before. This is what they think it's gonna be like.

[Seth Meyers]

But it's great because again, it's like everything is like high end, but they also are just like. You just can tell. These guys also like, hope they're burgers on the boat.

[Andy Samberg]

They're regular Joe's.

[Jorma Taccone]

I think all that is born out of them flipping burgers. And you're flipping copies. Right. And then we just had burgers handy and picked up some shots.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, it's just a setup.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Then it's like it just cuts back to like four times. And Keev is. And it's a little bit like, I'm on a boat. How. That's the lyric you keep hearing. I also feel like visually, Keev wants you to know he's got burgers too.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, you need to know that. Bawling out.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I'm watching it on mute right now. And it's just reminding me of some other things, which was like, so we had one day, we had this boat. We had to go out into open water. And then drones weren't a thing yet, so we had to get a real helicopter. And the helicopter was flown by exactly who you would think it would be, which was an ex Vietnam pilot who had done this thousands of times. And because of that. And you're going to lose time. That's also why we needed two cameras, because a camera had to go on that helicopter and had to. Or maybe it's a filming helicopter. And it always Would have a camera on it. I can't remember. But essentially somebody had to go.

[Jorma Taccone]

It had a rig built into the front of it, is my recollection.

[Akiva Schaffer]

No, no, for sure. But I don't know if you supply the camera that goes in that rig or not.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, I believe we did.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But there was a moment when, as the director, we would have to disappear to go on it, but we couldn't because we all had to be on this boat and be free to shoot. So we had the same team of this guy, Jonathan Leah and Robert Smythe, who had done Jizz. And Jonathan Leah volunteered to go on the helicopter and be the helicopter guy and who had done Jizz, the video. Jizz and magazine.

[Seth Meyers]

I know, but it's just one. I mean, it makes me so happy that you said that. I knew exactly what you meant. And I'm like, what a body of work that you guys have that you can be like. And then, you know, you do Jizz. We did Jizz.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. The number of times we've casually called it that. Planning the tour. So we'll go straight out of Dick in a Box into Jizz, and then we'll do. I think we should open with Jizz.

[Andy Samberg]

We're classy guys. Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So he was up in that helicopter, but it was an hour. It was basically like, at a certain point, he had to go get on that, and we had to get into open water and just be on this boat. Not. So I think we filmed the scene when we're underneath in the cabin of the boat with those big circle windows, like, while the boat is booking out into the ocean. Because you're not allowed to film in a helicopter in the bay. You can't bring a helicopter in there. So the boat had to go way further out to allow a helicopter, like, at some GPS coordinate to meet us in open water. So then we're. Now we're out in open water where it's way rockier and the boat is moving way more because we're not in a nice bay for filming. And we have to go climb out into a part of the boat you're not supposed to be standing on in dress shoes. And they put, like, rubber on our shoes so that we hopefully don't fall off into the water. And got the speakers hidden somewhere there so that they could blast it. He's on walkie, and all of a sudden we just see a helicopter come up and they're like, yep, it's us. And Yorm, I believe you're in the boat. Right. Looking at A monitor.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, it was like hiding as soon as the helicopter came.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, you're hiding in the boat with Nikru. That was on the boat with us with a walkie, talking to Jonathan in the helicopter, calling out when like, all right, three, two, one. I'm hitting playback. Because he can't hear the music either. And then the helicopter knows when to like come in on us.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And it was the crazy. It's still the craziest shoot I've ever been on at that moment. Like crazy coolest.

[Andy Samberg]

Having a helicopter swirl around you is. It's so deafening and fucking. And it was getting close.

[Akiva Schaffer]

You see the wind on us. That's wind from the chopper. And it was getting so close to get the shots and we could barely hear the music because it's so loud. I've never had a helicopter get that close in any other. It was. And even T Pain was looking at us like, holy shit, what are we doing?

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, it was genuinely cool.

[Jorma Taccone]

It was definitely the moment we like reached another level of how big and crazy we were going, obviously. But we were not unaware of that fact. Like as it was happening we were like, how fucking far are we going to take these dumbass off? Like. Like we are fully shooting a crazy ass huge baller video for a record label right now off the coast of Miami with a helicopter and a yacht. It felt massive and insane. The only other setup we ever did that came close was roof of the MetLife building for just had sex.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

But this was the first time we did it like this and it was. We couldn't believe it. Our minds were blown.

[Seth Meyers]

The other thing that's great about the fact there weren't drones yet, Keev is. There's two shots from the boat with the helicopter in the background.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Andy Samberg]

One of those is comped, I believe.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Ah, yeah, yeah, but it's real. But it's comped. It was even in the same shot the helicopter came. It just came at the wrong timing for it to look like a cool shot. That's not even like a VFX comp. That's just me in Final Cut Pro. It's like a split screen where I'm just grabbing the helicopter from like 20 seconds later and moving it to the time.

[Andy Samberg]

But I believe the other one is re.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, one is just untouched and one of them is lightly touched. But it's still the same thing. But yeah, I just changed the timing of it.

[Jorma Taccone]

When you did that shot though, Keev, I remember being in edit and it's the closest we've Ever been to, like, being, like, how Travis Scott's friends all are when he first plays them his songs?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Being like, duh.

[Jorma Taccone]

Oh, fuck, it's fucking so dope.

[Seth Meyers]

It looks so huge.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, my God.

[Jorma Taccone]

To run this, like, we were so amped. You slid the shot in half of the split screen.

[Andy Samberg]

I remember feeling like that when it played at Air, too. Of just, like. Even though. Because I did feel like it had sort of stunned the audience a little bit. And so there maybe wasn't the laughter necessarily, but it felt like it was like, oh, shit. I think that this is going to really hit in a different way. I mean, it was. It was. It's always crazy to see it play live, but that one in particular was like, oh, shit.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But if you want to jump to that night to what Seth was talking about and what you're talking about, I remember feeling disappointed. Go ahead.

[Jorma Taccone]

Do you want to talk about the footage situation?

[Akiva Schaffer]

I mean, we could talk about it for a second. I don't know how interesting it is, but yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

So one of the crazy things along the journey of the video was the. I guess the dp.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. Or dp.

[Jorma Taccone]

Aaron made the choice.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Who we used again? What did we use? Aaron Platt. It was Aaron Platt. And we used him again on something more recent. Oh, you know what he did when we did a reshoot on Pop Star, when we were getting additional stuff for videos, he shot, like the Emma Stone music video in Pop Star. Right.

[Jorma Taccone]

Nice guy. Fun dude.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

And could really shoot. Keith specifically, I believe, had asked him to make it feel really frenetic and crazy.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

And he was doing this trick while he was shooting footage where he was popping the lens in and out, which is great.

[Andy Samberg]

He was popping it off of the camera.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes. So I just have this vivid memory, Keith, correct me if you feel this is different, of going in there the first day of looking at the footage. We shot it on and off week. And then top of the week of SNL, we started cutting at 30 Rock and going in and ke looking through the footage and being like, we can't make the video. It's all just flares. There's no footage. I don't have a take of the jokes of the lines. I can't see anyone's face when we're saying the lines. Like, super in a spiral.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

And I remember being, like, looking at it with you. Be like, okay, calm down. I'm sure it's fine. And then looking with you and being like, oh, there's not a lot of options here. And Keev, bless your heart. Grinded that fucking edit from Monday till Saturday.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It took a lot longer to edit.

[Jorma Taccone]

Than other things, Pulling tiny little moments from every single moment. When you see the finished product, you would never know it because it's so high energy and dope. And in the end, I'm actually glad it was shot that way because it gives it this freneticism that is fucking incredible.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. It's so different.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes. It just made it much more difficult.

[Jorma Taccone]

But it was like, if you are seeing a shot in that video, there is no second option of that shot that was usable.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's what it really was. You're just seeing all the parts, and it worked. And we got lucky or whatever you want to call it, and he did a great job. But, yes, there were moments where it was like, there's a lot in here that the shot we planned is not the shot that's in. Because I'd go to the shot that was planned for whatever it is, like holding champagne, and I'd go, oh, all of them are out of focus. We can't do the shot of champagne. And then slowly, as we went through all of it, we would find the right. A different take that was rad at that moment.

[Jorma Taccone]

And there was a second part of it, too, which was there'd be tons of setups where all of a sudden you'd be like, oh, here we go. Here we go. It's clear. We can see. And then the boat would rock, and one of us would fall super hard.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And we definitely see the confidence, like, go out of our face a lot.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes. Yes.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Where we. Where it wouldn't be necessarily a fall, like, something that would be funny to see, but it would be like we're trying to seem like we're the most confident guys on the boat, and you'd feel us like.

[Jorma Taccone]

All right, so then let's go to the. It airing at the show.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Are you good? Are you good, Keith?

[Akiva Schaffer]

By the way, I think I do have to. I'm gonna probably just bail in, like, five minutes and just be gone. But you guys keep going.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay. But let me say, Keith, if case we're gonna lose you, I mean, you know, we'll play it. I'm not gonna read it, but it's my favorite, you know, four.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Just.

[Seth Meyers]

It is you. It is total keef in the pocket, and it's just the best.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That guy's really proud of being a boat so much that he's proud that the engine makes noise.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And it was quite noisy down there. I don't know. Did we use a shot from down there? I don't think we ever did.

[Andy Samberg]

I don't think we did.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Do I say it on camera as another kind of.

[Jorma Taccone]

There's definitely a couple of little snippets of it from when you're down by the boat engine, but it just looks like. It just looks like pipes or something.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, we did go down there.

[Seth Meyers]

And again, this boat is real. Makes me laugh a lot. It's a really dumb thing to say. Do you remember asking me if I could get Kevin Garnett to say everything is possible for the video?

[Jorma Taccone]

No. Did we ask you that?

[Seth Meyers]

You asked me. You're like, do you know anybody at the Celtics? Can we send somebody? Because they were playing the Knicks that night.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. Ah, yes, yes, yes.

[Seth Meyers]

And you guys realize, you're like, we would send somebody over and get them. And I did know somebody at the Celtics. I believe they're still at the Celtics and now have a way bigger job. But I won't name drop them. But I wrote them, and they very sweetly wrote back, and they're like, here's the thing about Kevin. Like, I don't want to talk to him before a game. Totally understand.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes, yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Like, everything you know about Kevin Garnett and game day preparation. Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

We needed uncut gems. Kevin, like, done with his career.

[Seth Meyers]

Sandler realized, like, timing is important.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah. I'm gonna ask him after he retires, buddy.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah. You can't ask him when he's not retired.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I'm looking at the video. The boat engine make noise is a shot of me with your, like, touching your head or, you know, messing with you. So it totally works. But it is not what we intended.

[Andy Samberg]

I probably allowed it to go so frenetic so that you would have to use that genre.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

All right. So it airs.

[Jorma Taccone]

It airs, changes the game.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I don't know what I expected from that audience because it is all the things you said loud and. And frenetic and, like, there aren't laugh spots. It's barely jokes. To yhorm's credit for saying. It's not. It's conceptual, a joke, the whole thing. As opposed to there aren't laugh moments. But I remember it getting applause at the end that I'm sure if we listen right now, we'll go. Those are strong applause. But in my warped ears at that moment, having worked so hard and having so much riding on it and feeling so strongly about it in the audience, I felt like. I don't know what I needed them to do. Stand up and give us a standing O at the end of it. I don't know what it would have made me happy, but I remember having that reaction and going, you know, like a mix of, like, disappointment. And the people at home are gonna know, like, excuses in my head. Like, this is a. This is an audience that just comes here and stays up all night to get tickets. Cause they just wanna see the laughs. They don't get what this is. This is for real people outside. Whatever. My excuses were in my head. But I remember not being like, we fuck. I was not feeling like high fiving after it aired.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, see, I. I felt like it was that probably because I was just so jealous.

[Akiva Schaffer]

You might have had a clearer sense of, I don't know.

[Andy Samberg]

I, like, no, I genuinely felt like it was gonna pop to the home audience, so I sort of didn't care.

[Seth Meyers]

And it did, right? Like, it was immediately a hit.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, yeah. And I didn't. I was giving the extreme example of my thoughts. Like, I also was like, no, I know that's good. And I felt good about it.

[Jorma Taccone]

But I. Keev, it was twofold. Because I had the same reaction as you. Not exactly the same, but I remember being like, it played okay. And part of that was, you know, at this point, we had done a lot of them where it played crazy.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes.

[Jorma Taccone]

In the studio.

[Seth Meyers]

Right.

[Jorma Taccone]

Where we'd be like, that just smashed. And it feels insane for you when it happens and you've made something and you feel so happy. And so this one for such a long wind up of like having written it the summer before, people all being like, that one feels like it could be a hit. Then going to Miami, spending all the money from the label, pulling out the edit, and then being like, here we go. It's like the buildup at SNL is never that long. It's always like, I thought of this two days ago and now it's on the show. So the expectation of it was like. And also, like you said, this is the one that's hopefully gonna kick off the album because it's coming out so soon. And then the reaction couldn't help but feel a little bit like a letdown. And then I feel like also people at the show were like, hey, good job.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That was it. If you went on internal SNL politics of people being nice to us. Like, the REBA short is diamond, you know, like, like 10 times platinum. Like, it was after that aired. The way Lauren congratulated me, you'd think we had just made I'm on a Boat to how the world and the way everyone, like every other castmate or Higgins would be like, now that's good. And when this aired, people didn't kind of say shit or they went, hey, nice one tonight. As if it was any other, like, you know, small, like the third blizzard man or something.

[Seth Meyers]

We were all pretty mad how bad you guys had fucked over Yorm.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, yeah. Yorm had poisoned the well.

[Andy Samberg]

I thought it was more so stunned. To me, that's how I viewed it.

[Jorma Taccone]

Well, Seth, you're the only one that wasn't us. What was your vibe of yourself and other people when that one aired?

[Seth Meyers]

I don't remember. I will say it's interesting to not really remember Night of. Whereas, for example, I know exactly how I felt when I saw Jack Sparrow. Right. Like, that was fuck. And I think maybe even just even for like, comedy SNL people, like, we were probably waiting for. Because again, we never see these things until dress.

[Jorma Taccone]

You're waiting for bigger laughs.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Or just like, what's the turn? And then again you realize, like, oh, it's. I mean, again, it's so funny the second time when you know that these two dummies are just going to sing about this boat the whole time.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

And part of it is that you guys had trained us to be ready for anything. And so then when, like, the thing we were ready for, it was like, oh, no, that's it.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally fair. I mean, I don't think any of us thought it was our funniest song. And I will also say, in a way we didn't even realize that it was more broad than we understood, which is a mistake we always make as viewers, where I'll see something and I'll be like, that was whatever. And then it explodes. Because normies are like, I understand it like this. You know what I mean?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Like, we were not go on boats. It was also for them. It wasn't just making fun of them. It was also for them.

[Jorma Taccone]

Like, did we think for the next 10 years people are gonna be like, we played that at Lake Havasu. We were just like, what?

[Seth Meyers]

That was confusing again. I film Lobby Baby in Minneapolis on a Friday night. On Saturday night, I was going to go see you guys do your concert at the Armory in Minneapolis on Saturday afternoon. Me and Shoemaker and Brooks Whelan went out on my friend's boat in Minnesota on Lake Minnetonka. We literally went by another boat full of people playing I'm on a boat. And, like, just unironically, our boat started Screaming it to their boat, just screaming the lyrics. And it was just like people on boats being so happy to be on a boat and finally have a song to express.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I mean, that's the best.

[Jorma Taccone]

That absolutely rules. Yeah. It's so fucking rad. It's so stupid and wonderful.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It's also like, weirdly, like that thing of, like. You know what? For too long, I've not been allowed to be this happy about publicly happy about how I feel about being on a boat.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Guys, I told my fellow podcasters that I have to. I had a very hard out here for my family.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Uh, so my apologies to the Kuwait army, but I'm bailing here. If there's more to talk about this next step, I'd happy to pick it on up.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, family first.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Cave.

[Seth Meyers]

Family first.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I love you.

[Jorma Taccone]

Love you, buddy.

[Seth Meyers]

Love you.

[Andy Samberg]

Love you.

[Akiva Schaffer]

All right, bye.

[Seth Meyers]

First comment, because there were a few dislikes on the video and somebody wrote all the dislikes are from people on land.

[Andy Samberg]

Land lovers. Was it you your like? Myself.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

It's all me, just under pseudonyms.

[Seth Meyers]

And then somebody I just like. I like a YouTube comments section how, you know, everything's written flatly. You know what I mean? Like, nobody's putting anything in it. And someone just wrote, my favorite part is when they were on the boat.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah, I like that.

[Seth Meyers]

I like that.

[Andy Samberg]

That's terrific.

[Seth Meyers]

I don't think we need to go any further. I think.

[Jorma Taccone]

Can I just say one last thing?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Because I. You're. You're my dear friend and I can see that you're a little still maybe sore about not being on the song, but I do want to just point out.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

We have a history of this.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

And I never complained when in four iterations, I was referred to as Steve. The. Who invited Steve?

[Andy Samberg]

That dude's a. I don't know what you're talking about.

[Jorma Taccone]

And there I was, front and center for my close up.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yep.

[Jorma Taccone]

Happy. Just happy to be included. You know what I mean?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

Just happy to be included, my man.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Jorma Taccone]

So just be classy. You know what I'm saying?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Just keep it classy.

[Seth Meyers]

Keep it classy, or we're gonna continue.

[Andy Samberg]

To keep it classy.

[Seth Meyers]

Guys, guys, I just want to say the pod is back. The energy was great.

[Jorma Taccone]

Woo.

[Seth Meyers]

We got all four of us. And there's lots more.

[Jorma Taccone]

Honestly, there's lots more to talk about. About. I'm on a boat, but this was a ton.

[Seth Meyers]

And you know what? I think we're going to. We're gonna just chill until we get Keith back. And we love everybody.

[Jorma Taccone]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Love you guys.

[Jorma Taccone]

Love you.

[Andy Samberg]

Love you.

[Jorma Taccone]

You are my. I especially love you.

[Andy Samberg]

I.