The SNL 50th Recap

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast – "The SNL 50th Recap"

Release Date: February 28, 2025
Episode: The SNL 50th Recap
Host: Seth Meyers
Guests: The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone)

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1. Reflecting on SNL's 50th Anniversary

In this heartfelt episode, Seth Meyers joins forces with The Lonely Island—Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone—to reminisce about their experiences celebrating the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Seth opens the conversation by expressing his mixed emotions post-celebration:

Seth Meyers [00:24]: "I think I had some like lows going into it. Super highs. During. Totally crashed after."

The group delves into the significance of the milestone, likening it to a midlife crisis, and reflects on how such a celebration impacts their personal and professional lives.

Seth Meyers [00:56]: "It felt like afterwards I just walked by a graveyard that had tombstones with all our names on it."

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2. Celebrating Iconic SNL Sketches and Performances

A significant portion of the discussion centers around memorable sketches and performances from the 50th anniversary special. The team highlights standout moments, particularly the mesmerizing performance of their beloved characters Bobby and Marty:

Akiva Schaffer [04:32]: "Bobby and Marty crushing at Radio City was something to see."

They commend the duo's ability to captivate the audience with their patience and comedic timing, making the entire room engage with their performance.

The conversation also touches on the introduction of new sketches and characters, emphasizing their quotability and lasting impact on the show's legacy.

Andy Samberg [26:05]: "Synchronized swimmers. And also Marty in the other pre tape where he's like the nervous guy smoking."

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3. Crafting the Memorable Medley: Collaborations and Challenges

One of the episode's highlights is the behind-the-scenes look at creating their groundbreaking medley. Seth and The Lonely Island discuss the collaborative efforts with high-profile artists and the challenges faced during the creative process.

Andy Samberg [09:03]: "I was like, well, I'll do whatever she wants. So I said, of course."

The medley features collaborations with musical giants such as Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, T-Pain, and Eddie Vedder, each bringing their unique flair to the performance. The team reflects on the meticulous preparation required to blend their comedic genius with musical integrity.

Seth Meyers [10:39]: "Bad Bunny and Eddie Vedder performed with exactly as much heart that they had in their earlier performances."

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4. Interactions with Celebrities and After-Party Antics

The episode provides an entertaining recount of interactions with various celebrities during the 50th anniversary celebrations. From meeting legends like Bonnie Raitt to humorous encounters with Chris Martin and Jon Lovitz, Seth and The Lonely Island share their delightful experiences.

Andy Samberg [14:08]: "Bonnie Raitt was the coolest ever. You couldn't believe how cool."

A particularly amusing moment involves Andy's story about almost missing the bathroom during a rehearsal with a member of the Backstreet Boys, leading to a comical interaction.

Andy Samberg [19:11]: "So, I apologize for that."

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5. Behind-the-Scenes Stories and Personal Anecdotes

Beyond the glitz and glamour, the podcast delves into personal stories and behind-the-scenes moments that highlight the camaraderie and challenges faced by the team. They discuss the pressure of live performances, the emotional toll of celebrating such a long-running show, and the support they found in each other.

Akiva Schaffer [54:00]: "And I was so thankful to just be a part of this big celebration that was like, honoring what this show meant over 50 years to so many people."

The guests share anecdotes about rehearsals, impromptu performances, and the meticulous effort behind every sketch, showcasing their dedication to maintaining SNL's legacy.

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6. Highlights and Memorable Quotes

Throughout the episode, several standout quotes encapsulate the essence of their celebration and the enduring impact of SNL:

• Seth Meyers [04:32]: "It was so patient and so quiet. It was exactly what Bobby and Marty always were."

• Andy Samberg [10:17]: "It was so special. It just couldn't have made us feel more like the show was making what we did feel special."

• Akiva Schaffer [33:31]: "Which one was that? Which one was it? Like a man who truly doesn't understand a cell phone."

These quotes not only provide humor but also reflect the deep appreciation and bond the team shares with the show and each other.

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7. Closing Thoughts and Future Reflections

As the conversation winds down, Seth and The Lonely Island express their gratitude for the opportunity to celebrate SNL's 50th anniversary together. They acknowledge the challenges but also the joyous moments that made the event unforgettable.

Seth Meyers [55:54]: "I didn't take a single picture of it. I realized today it's down."

The episode concludes with a nod to future collaborations and the hope of continuing to honor SNL's rich history in upcoming projects.

Seth Meyers [56:12]: "But it was really lovely seeing you both. It was very special."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Seth Meyers [00:24]: "I think I had some like lows going into it. Super highs. During. Totally crashed after."

• Seth Meyers [04:32]: "Bobby and Marty crushing at Radio City was something to see."

• Andy Samberg [10:17]: "It was so special. It just couldn't have made us feel more like the show was making what we did feel special."

• Andy Samberg [19:11]: "So, I apologize for that."

• Akiva Schaffer [54:00]: "And I was so thankful to just be a part of this big celebration that was like, honoring what this show meant over 50 years to so many people."

• Seth Meyers [55:54]: "I didn't take a single picture of it. I realized today it's down."

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This comprehensive recap captures the essence of Seth Meyers and The Lonely Island's nostalgic and humorous exploration of SNL's 50th anniversary. Through engaging stories, memorable quotes, and insightful reflections, listeners are treated to an intimate look at what makes SNL an enduring cornerstone of American comedy.

Transcript

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, everybody. This is the SNL 50th recap episode and it is brought to you by our very special sponsor this week, airbnb. It's the Lonely island and Seth Meyers podcast. Hey, dudes.

[Andy Samberg]

Seth.

[Seth Meyers]

It's been eight days since the SNL 50th.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And I feel as though based on my highs and lows, I think I'm coming back to the. The middle. I'm coming back. Seth the human being. Before it all started. I'm still hungover, but I think I had some like lows going into it. Super highs. During. Totally crashed after.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Took stock of my life. Felt like it had been a major. More than any other milestone in my life. Maybe was a bigger one. Felt way more midlife crisis than my 50th birthday.

[Andy Samberg]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

You know what I mean?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, really?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Because it was such a milestone. You were like, oh, man, I guess I am old.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. It felt like afterwards I just walked by a graveyard that had tombstones with all our names on it.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But there was like a party in the graveyard.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Which was a good way to remember we're all gonna live forever because we worked on a show that is as iconic as snl.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. I've definitely emotionally hungover, but I bet it was a good emotional hangover.

[Andy Samberg]

And Seth, let me ask you a question.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

You still do it late night?

[Seth Meyers]

I am, I am. I'm on a two week hiatus. Maybe the most kindly scheduled hiatus I've ever had.

[Andy Samberg]

Ah. Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I gotta say, you look great, Seth. You look kind of tan.

[Seth Meyers]

Certainly wouldn't have been ready to go back the Monday after that very late after party. And still today on a Monday would not have been ready either. Quick trivia question. I do not know if this Instagram is true or not, but I just saw on Instagram screen time in the 50th anniversary special. Can you guys name the top three? Screen time. Gathering people at the SNL 50th.

[Andy Samberg]

Like, who is on camera the most?

[Seth Meyers]

Yes. You have to be actually in the shot.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Okay. Me number one.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Lauren number two.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And Tina Fey, three.

[Seth Meyers]

Great. So now we're going to let a real person try. Thank you, Hyor.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Okay.

[Andy Samberg]

I think Feral has to be one of them because he was in two things.

[Seth Meyers]

Number five.

[Andy Samberg]

Ah. Marty Short.

[Seth Meyers]

No.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Was Jost just because of Update?

[Seth Meyers]

No. They're a little bit further down the list. In fact, they're both farther down the list, I believe, than our good friend Andy Samberg. Oh.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, wow.

[Seth Meyers]

But Kenan Thompson, number one. Number one, what was he in?

[Andy Samberg]

He was in Scared Straight. He was a tiny part in Welk and Black Jeopardy.

[Seth Meyers]

Host of Black Jeopardy. Ah, just racking up the minutes.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, it makes sense because he's the one who's been on the show the longest.

[Seth Meyers]

He also has the most screen time in the history of the show. It is very in line with the history of the show. Number two, Amy Poehler, who did the Q and A and Bronx beat. A lot of camera time there.

[Andy Samberg]

Wonderful.

[Seth Meyers]

Number three, Fascinating. Although it makes sense. Sabrina Carpenter did Domingo.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Which I kind of like too, that a musician of the moment made their way in there.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I love that people do this as a hobby. So there's someone with a stopwatch doing.

[Seth Meyers]

This out in the world, one would assume. Although it'd be super funny if someone. If we asked, how did you do it? And they were like, I just kind of guess. Just guess. Like that felt like 11 minutes, 13 seconds. We saw each other a lot in the run up to this.

[Andy Samberg]

We did.

[Seth Meyers]

And we saw each other during some gnarly times.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, gnarly. Relative.

[Seth Meyers]

Relative. But we did not have the air about us of, oh, you know what's nice is all these years later I've learned not to take it seriously. You were in up to your knees in the short.

[Andy Samberg]

Short. And medley.

[Seth Meyers]

And medley.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

So you had a massive amount more on your plate than most people, Andy.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. I mean, I wonder what my screen time total ranking would have been if we included the Friday night show.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Cuz Keenan, noticeably absent, totally mailed it in on Friday.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, he did an intro still.

[Seth Meyers]

I don't think he would have caught you.

[Akiva Schaffer]

D. No, definitely not.

[Seth Meyers]

Although maybe those intros did sometimes. They were buying a lot of time.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. And by the way, Frell and Anna on fire at the Friday show.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That was my favorite thing that's ever happened.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, we're going to jump all around, but a highlight for me, of the many highlights. And I do want to talk about the medley because that was certainly one of them. But Bobby and Marty crushing at Radio City was something to see.

[Andy Samberg]

It was so fantastic.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I was doubled over the entire time.

[Seth Meyers]

It was so patient and so quiet. It was exactly what Bobby and Marty always were. It took no accounting of the room they were in. It made the entirety of the room come to them and meet them on Bobby and Marty's home court.

[Andy Samberg]

The Culps.

[Seth Meyers]

Culps. Everything in the long run up was so funny. And then the medley was so funny. And it was also Updated and modern.

[Andy Samberg]

Yep.

[Seth Meyers]

And it was one of the moments where I made an effort to just look around and find the faces of people I loved who were just dying with laughter.

[Andy Samberg]

Dying.

[Seth Meyers]

Dying with laughter.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I may have picked this up from hanging around Emily Spivey, but Spivey, I feel like, does this occasionally where if something's funny enough, she makes this kind of, like, ugh sound. And I was constantly doing that during. I was just like, ugh. The wordage of that joke was so deliciously horrible.

[Andy Samberg]

It was crazy because it was like, what, eight, nine minutes long.

[Seth Meyers]

Yep.

[Andy Samberg]

And every joke landed.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And Bobby and Marty is an era and a half ago. Three eras ago. And so it wasn't necessarily that the audience was immediately. Oh, my God. A Bobby and Marty. Even for people who'd never seen it before, they taught them the game. It crushed with people who are fans of it. It crushed with new business.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And I had the greatest conversation. I wrote Ana, who had one of the best weekends of anybody truly on a God, all the time, perfect everything. She was in gold.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And she said that her and Will, afterwards, they were talking about. They felt really happy on behalf of the characters, Bobby and Marty. Like, they weren't backstage saying, oh, my God. Will and Anna just crushed it. They just said it was, like, the perfect final act for these two losers. Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

What a nice thing for them.

[Seth Meyers]

Not losers, but just, like, nerds. Yeah. Ana said it was also so funny to be backstage with, like, the coolest musicians in the world.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Dressed like Bobby and Martin. Like, even if they were dressed like Will and Anna, it would have been a marked difference.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

But to be dressed as and then to go out and kill, it was so funny. It was great.

[Andy Samberg]

When she dropped into the dochi, I was like, all right, this is. Yeah, they're taking it places. I was not even guessing.

[Akiva Schaffer]

There were people in the audience, too, that I was looking over. In addition to looking around and finding people that I loved enjoying it, I was also clocking some, like, pretty young kids just being psyched about the song choices, too. Just being like, oh, my God.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, that was always. The secret sauce of that was that it was whatever was popular in pop at that moment.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's incredible.

[Seth Meyers]

And then the funny part is if you. You only know Will and Anna, you think to yourself, well, I'm sure the writer then must be this super young, plugged in person. And then we know it's Paul Lapel.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And so it weirdly looks like even higher level of difficulty to make something so perfectly Modern. It was great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Kudos. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I also thought on that same level of just total patience, Fred and Maya as Prince and Beyonce, just spectacular again.

[Andy Samberg]

Just also just the fun of being like, oh, I wasn't sure I was ever gonna get to see these things again.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. That was a lot of the experience of my weekend.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And I think part of it, the hangover afterwards, was knowing that even while you're watching it, even if you could be aware, oh, I never thought I was gonna see this again. You also, at the same time, were sad that it might be the last time.

[Andy Samberg]

Right, right.

[Seth Meyers]

I had that so many times over the course of the weekend.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. You know, it's weird that I forgot to tell you. Lauren asked me to take over the show.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh. And you turned it down.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, I was like, I don't want it again. Yeah. I was like, no, thanks, I'm busy. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

So weird, because I saw him talking to you. I didn't hear what he said, but I saw you say, no, thanks. And then I saw him shrug and he walked by me and I tried to make eye contact with him and he just went. And then just walked right by.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, interesting.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I don't think those are worse.

[Seth Meyers]

That's weird timing.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

One more thing I want to say, though, again, those performances were incredible. But both Maya and Fred, Anna and Will, they were remembering the muscle memory of how to do those things they've done live before, and they did not get knocked off their game. You, Andy, had a much harder level of difficulty doing a whole new medley of your songs with totally different people.

[Andy Samberg]

Sure.

[Seth Meyers]

How long was that process?

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, the hardest part was done, which is the songs were already written. So in a way it's. But I think it was like, we started working on it the week before. And I mean, the trickiest part was, you know, originally we started talking about it, we were hoping that it would be all other music people doing all the songs.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And then I guess Aaron, David and some of the folks on the SNL side had reached out to Lady Gaga and she said she wanted to do it with me.

[Seth Meyers]

Right.

[Andy Samberg]

And I was like, well, I'll do whatever she wants. So I said, of course. But then I was like, oh, shit.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Now I have to actually, like, I didn't think about until, honestly, like, the day before that I was going to have to actually do, like, a singing duet with Lady Gaga. And then I was like, uh, oh, you sounded good.

[Seth Meyers]

You sounded good.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, I had the easy part, as I did with Justin, obviously. Justin was on tour. That's why the whole thing started the way it started. But she was great and was so game. And we got so lucky that everyone who agreed to do it did it. I mean, obviously Parnell, really fun to be back with him, but, like, fucking Bad Bunny, T Pain and Eddie Vedder as Jack Sparrow was, like, that was fucking killer.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. It was nuts.

[Andy Samberg]

It was so special. It, like, just couldn't have made us feel more like the show was making what we did feel special, you know, it was very, very exciting for me.

[Seth Meyers]

There's that thing where it elevates people in my eyes so much when they agree to do something like that and then approach it with the same musical integrity they approach their own performances.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Like, Bad Bunny and Eddie Vedder performed with exactly as much heart that they had in their earlier performances. And that is like that when they get the game, which is not to be winking at it.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

You know, just Eddie Vedder just belting with, wearing a pirate cap.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I felt like that when we were rehearsing and Gaga was learning David Davin is that. Am I pronouncing that right? Was part of composing that medley, and she was needing to, like, learn the piano parts and how difficult they actually were made me realize, like, one, like, how seriously you're taking this, but also, just, like, the musicality of it. Because even seeing the sheet music is fun to be, like, Lonely island medley and seeing it written out in sheet.

[Andy Samberg]

Music is so funny.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So great. But it required, like, learning it. It's not just, like, a given that even Gaga is going to be able to just nail it immediately.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, secret bonus for me. You as Jackson, Maine. Kind of a dream come true for me. Long been waiting for the moment. I mean.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. Had it snatched from me at the Globes when we had the P rig bit go awry.

[Seth Meyers]

It turned out, you know, in the end, you didn't need, like, the P rig was sort of Dumbo's feather. You didn't need that. You could fly on your own.

[Andy Samberg]

Thank you for saying it exactly that way.

[Seth Meyers]

I'm gonna use that now while we're on. I mean, I think Parnell a little bit like Bobby Marty. Right. There's a whole generation of people who have no idea, you know, the roots of Lazy Sunday.

[Andy Samberg]

Sure.

[Seth Meyers]

And yet, you know, 20 years older, Parnell is just as funny doing hardcore rap as he was back then. Because also, Parnell was kind of always 50.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

You know.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

The comedy of Parnell was his stoicism.

[Andy Samberg]

When we were rehearsing it. I wasn't sure if he was, like, saving his voice or if he was just trying it out different ways, but he was doing Lazy Sunday a little more, like, conversationally.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And before the. The real one, Yoram and I were like, hey, do it the angry way.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Don't forget like that. That's really. You're very funny doing that. And like.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I was like, you know, take it back to your, like, Britney rap.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I was like, oh, okay.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Oh, that's what you'd like. I could be angry.

[Andy Samberg]

And then he came out. I mean, by the way, one of my favorite moments of the entire 50th was explaining to Chris Parnell what screaming Mustard was.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And where, like, playing him TV off and explaining who Mustard was and why. It's a thing that everyone talked about and how. I was like, did you see the super bowl halftime show? He's like, I did not.

[Seth Meyers]

Just like, oh, shit.

[Andy Samberg]

Okay, we're starting from zero.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I will say it's a good reveal in that you go from him screaming mustard and then pull wide to a shaking bottle of mustard in the backpack.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Have you watched it, Andy? You were saying that you were maybe a little nervous to watch it.

[Andy Samberg]

I didn't watch it.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, but you felt great about it.

[Andy Samberg]

I felt great. The response was better than I ever dreamed of from people around the show and people texting me and stuff.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

So I wanted to just let it be what it felt like.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, I'll tell you, Andy, it was better than I thought it was going to be on the cuts because obviously it's always the nerve, nerve wracking part of just when it goes into that booth and someone's going, camera one, camera two.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, of course. And a big thank you to Beth McCarthy Miller, who directed the whole thing and had basically two run throughs of that.

[Seth Meyers]

It's nuts.

[Andy Samberg]

And was very receptive to all of our requests. And it was a big, huge mess of a piece. So thank you, Beth.

[Seth Meyers]

And top to bottom, what a concert it twas.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, my God, dude. Lauryn Hill.

[Seth Meyers]

Lauryn Hill alone.

[Andy Samberg]

Lauryn Hill coming out and just being like, what?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Bonnie Raitt.

[Seth Meyers]

And Bonnie Raitt. I mean, we're gonna. We can jump ahead just to say that Andy and I, if you're wondering who the most excited we were to meet any celebrity, Andy and I both met Bonnie Raitt, and it was exceptional.

[Andy Samberg]

It's the coolest ever.

[Seth Meyers]

The coolest.

[Andy Samberg]

The coolest ever. You couldn't believe how cool.

[Seth Meyers]

The only photo I took at the party was of me, my wife and Bonnie Raitt.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And what was her vibe?

[Andy Samberg]

Just the coolest.

[Seth Meyers]

It was like, oh, well, hello. What an honor to meet you.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's a cool ass accent. Also, here's the thing.

[Seth Meyers]

That was not her, that was me.

[Andy Samberg]

That was Seth doing Bill Clinton to her.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, I see. Gotcha, gotcha. That makes a lot more sense because it was like very not Southern.

[Andy Samberg]

That's the only thing it could.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. She goes, I feel your 50th. That's weird.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Her voice was not only good, it was like had fucking real attitude.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes. And at the same time, there's just no push. She's just such a veteran of killing it over and over a million times. And she's destroying on guitar.

[Seth Meyers]

Yep.

[Andy Samberg]

The songs are, you know, we know them and love them, but they still feel new somehow. Cause she's playing them so well. It was just like she rules.

[Seth Meyers]

Shout out to Chris Martin for two things. First, Chris Martin playing piano for Bonnie Raitt was a really awesome thing to see. Also, I heard that he said he would do it. And Bonnie Raitt was like, sure, but he has to talk to my piano player just to make. And he was like, whatever you need. The other thing was I lost my voice. I didn't feel sick, but I lost my voice hardcore. And Saturday night there was an evening where people gave toasts to Lorne Michaels and Lexi. My wife and I were talking to Chris Martin and she said, hey, what do you do when you lose your voice? And he said, oh, I do that. He literally pulled out like drops. He puts in his.

[Andy Samberg]

An elixir.

[Seth Meyers]

An elixir? Yeah, just a Coldplay elixir. And she said, can Seth have it? And he said, yeah. And he just gave it to me. And so I was just like pumping the Chris Martin juice into my throat.

[Andy Samberg]

What do you think the over under is that the thing he gave you is the stuff that Eddie Redmayne's character in Jupiter Ascending is harvesting?

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, obviously I want it to be that.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. And when you spritz it and go jupe.

[Seth Meyers]

I'm definitely wondering at this point how many people pause the pod to go Google Jupiter Ascending.

[Akiva Schaffer]

No, to watch Jupiter.

[Andy Samberg]

Do yourself a favor.

[Seth Meyers]

You think they're going to watch the whole thing?

[Akiva Schaffer]

They had to go watch the whole thing. Well, once you start Jupiter Ascending, I don't think you fucking stop.

[Seth Meyers]

Did you go to the toast, Sandy?

[Andy Samberg]

I was editing.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Editing? Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

You're editing.

[Andy Samberg]

I wanted to so bad. Yeah, I had a real, you know, Dark couple of hours of being grumpy because I was like, yeah, fucking pre tapes.

[Seth Meyers]

Wait, I have a question, Andy. Did you go to any after party after music?

[Andy Samberg]

No.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Alexi and I also bailed that night. I mean, we had not been out past midnight three nights in a row for a very long time. Which we did.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. I mean, I worked the whole time.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I got there the Sunday before the Sunday and worked round the clock the entire week nonstop. And it was anxiety inducing, much like the short would have implied.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I also say, though, it was worth it. Like everything that you put in, I think, came out on screen. And it was very good.

[Andy Samberg]

Thanks.

[Seth Meyers]

I hope you know that, Andy. We appreciate, on behalf of everyone, we appreciate what you put in. But yeah, you were not. Well, we did see each other. We had a nice drink on.

[Andy Samberg]

You're right.

[Seth Meyers]

We snuck out Wednesday night.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, you're right.

[Seth Meyers]

But you weren't done until late. And you, me, Klein and Jost had a lovely drink.

[Andy Samberg]

And you had two non alcoholic beers Yorm style.

[Seth Meyers]

I did. I was nabbing it.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Before I forget, Lin Manuel said he would love to volunteer to do the next Criterion episode.

[Andy Samberg]

He said the same to me. And how wonderful would that be?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Can I just tell a quick story and you can cut it out if we want to, but you know, and.

[Seth Meyers]

By the way, Yoram, I feel like you do this a lot where you won asked to tell a story on a podcast of which you're a member.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And then you also give us permission to cut it out. And you know, I just be confident, tell the story and know that the likelihood is we will cut it out.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, it's a. A little bit tangential, but. Because we mentioned Coldplay. But it was one of my favorite SNL moments, which is that when we were on the show, my grandmother would try to stay up for the show to see our shorts. And I just remember a moment where she was like, I tried to stay up for the short, but then I fell asleep during Hot Plate. And I was like, hot Plate. I was like, oh, Coldplay.

[Andy Samberg]

Coldplay.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But I just like that she called it Hot Plate.

[Seth Meyers]

Hot Plate's pretty good, I think. You know what, Andy? I'm gonna leave it in. I'm gonna leave that story in.

[Andy Samberg]

Okay, great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

And then the other fun was that she would call our buddy Brian Danger Mouse. How's Dragon Mice? And then I told that to Brian. He was like, this is just as good a name. I should just change.

[Andy Samberg]

Dragon Mice is a good name. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Do we have anything else About Friday, the text I got sent the most, I had my arms around Alexi, and we were swaying to Backstreet Boys. And they cut to us.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, nice.

[Seth Meyers]

And I could even sense the camera. And I had real moment, like, oh, shoot, this is going to be when I'm on.

[Andy Samberg]

I have a funny Backstreet Boys moment.

[Seth Meyers]

Great.

[Andy Samberg]

First off, love them.

[Seth Meyers]

I loved them so much. It was one of my favorite moments of the night.

[Andy Samberg]

They did the song that is very. I mean, obviously it's a hit for them, but it was a big thing on Brooklyn 9 9. It's a cold open where we have the perps in a lineup singing that song. I want it that way. And I was being ushered around for rehearsal by a woman who was working for the show. And I was like, I really have to go to the bathroom. Number one. Everybody relax. And she was like, you need to be on stage now. You need to be on stage now. And I was like, okay. So we walked over to where the bathroom was, and one of the Backstreet Boys was about to go into the bathroom, and she was like, he needs to go. We need him on stage. And he was super nice. And he said, hello. And he was like, oh, we're doing your song. Cause he knew the thing about Brooklyn Nine Nine. And I was like, oh, that's so awesome. I went to the bathroom, quickly left, went out on stage, and then stood there for 45 minutes. And Backstreet Boys went on and rehearsed before us. And I was like, oh, man, he must think I'm a piece of shit. So anyway, I apologize for that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I bet he thought it was number two, by the way.

[Andy Samberg]

It wasn't. I mean, if it was, it was the fastest number two in the history of humanity.

[Seth Meyers]

I. When you said I had to go to the bathroom number one, I thought you were doing a list, not that you were saying number one. You had to go to the bathroom. So I thought you were going to be like, I had to go to the bathroom. Number one. It was a shit number two.

[Andy Samberg]

No.

[Seth Meyers]

So I also thought the Backstreet Boys, of everyone who performed on a night where the performances were, without exception, wonderful. They seemed to be the most joyous to me.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, it was Kevin, just for the record.

[Seth Meyers]

Gotcha. Robin and David Byrne. I found incredibly special Robin and David.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Byrne that, like, taught me how to dad dance. I was like, I gotta fucking practice my moves.

[Andy Samberg]

It was so fucking wonderful. Also, they played two of my favorite songs, period, ever.

[Seth Meyers]

Yep.

[Andy Samberg]

100% back to back and together. And the Suits and the vibe. It was just perfect.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So fun.

[Andy Samberg]

At the after party, I was taking a picture of Beck Bennett and Beck the singer.

[Seth Meyers]

Love it.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Sure, sure.

[Andy Samberg]

Because I accidentally called Beck the singer to do a bit to Beck Bennett, like, two hours earlier. And then I saw him, and I was like, I'm so sorry. And then by chance, Beck Bennett walked up, and I was like, let me get this Beck picture. So I was taking that picture, and Robin, who we know. Cause we did a song with her, but I haven't seen in years, walked up to say hi to Beck singer. And I drunkenly, as a joke, was like, robin, not right now. I'm taking a picture of the Becks. And she went, oh, okay. Turned around and walked away. And I was like, wait, no. I was like, I don't care about the Beck picture. I want to say hi. And then she was just gone. And I never saw her again. So I'm very, very hopeful. She knew I was goofing and that I wasn't being a huge asshole for no reason.

[Seth Meyers]

Always the risk.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, always the risk.

[Seth Meyers]

Always the risk.

[Akiva Schaffer]

She was behind us for red carpet for the 50th. We ended up talking to her for, like, 15 minutes. So I got my Robin talk.

[Seth Meyers]

You know the famous story about George Harrison playing piano? The 17th Floor Writers Room, like, in the.

[Andy Samberg]

Someone was like, can you fucking stop? Like, as a bit.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Harrison was playing Beatles songs, and everybody was, like, just coming out of their office on a Tuesday night, and they couldn't believe it. And then Al Franken came out, was like, people are trying to work. And George Harrison was like, oh, okay. But, like, he did it as a bit. But, like, George Harrison was like, okay, sorry.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's a great bit also because, like.

[Seth Meyers]

It kind of makes sense that you'd be working.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, my God. Shut the fuck up.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, it's so funny.

[Seth Meyers]

Hey, everybody, this is Seth, and we hope you're enjoying this SNL 50th episode of the Lonely island podcast, brought to you courtesy of Airbnb. Obviously, this podcast is about four friends hanging out, talking about old times. And we have taken trips with our SNL writer friends. It was something we would do during our time at snl. We went to Amsterdam once to hang out with my friends from Boom Chicago, which is the comedy theater I used to work at. And we went out of our way to make sure we booked an Airbnb because we knew that our evenings would end and we would want to go have a quiet hang with one another. And the bars were going to be closed, and the hotel lobby was going to be closed. But with an Airbnb, we could find our way into a nice living room. We would have a kitchen where we bought the snacks we wanted to eat, maybe had a fridge full of beverages, both adult and otherwise. And those times that hang when we would all just settle in together was one of the things that made that trip extra special. And it was all thanks to Airbnb and what it provides that other places don't. So when you're looking for an authentic or local experience, book your next awesome trip. [e-mail] I gave a toast for Lauren. And I will say I think my toast for Lauren went well. And then Tina gave a toast that crushed, but I gave a toast that went well. But one joke didn't work at all. And I just made eye contact with Al Franken. He was the perfect person because he also knew it hadn't gone well. And he just looked at me and was like, yeah. Second thing, I felt very seen by Al Franken.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, outside of the Friday show, which was just pure joy, every other moment of it was like, tough room central.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Like, everyone there is the people that have seen and heard every joke their whole life.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Cause like, also, Radio City had that. There was an anonymity to it as well.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Where at the 50th proper, you were both an audience and yet you felt you were on stage, even in your seat.

[Andy Samberg]

You also. They had built a new bleachers. So, like, when I was in Domingo, I could, like, see people's faces in the audience. Yeah, Very clearly. Like, I was, like, looking right at Steve Martin and Mulaney.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Wait, Andy, did you have any interactions after the short with any of the people that were in the short and their faces had been manipulated with the anxiety?

[Andy Samberg]

I did. I was very happy. I did. I got a chance to chat with Billy Crystal about it and. And he was lovely. I had recently met him, I think I had mentioned, at one of those SNL gathering photo shoots and was so happy to meet him. And I was like, I hope that was okay. And he was like, of course. Of course it was fine. He was very, you know, gracious about all of it. And I was like, did you have anxiety when you worked at the show? And he was like, yeah, a little.

[Akiva Schaffer]

You know, that was gonna be my follow up was like, did Eddie Murphy have anxiety?

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. And I was like, yeah. But you guys, they were a different thing, though, because they were the ringer cast where it was like, they had all already had success on their own. And he was like, you know, you have regular stage jitters. But it wasn't the fear of, like, am I gonna make it on the show? Cause they were all already made. But I had an interesting thought talking to him, and I wonder if you guys have a feeling on this. I was like, I think that season might be one of, if not the most quotable seasons of SNL ever. Interesting in terms of how many sketches happened for the first time during that season. Where.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Give us some examples, though. So marvelous. Obviously, you look marvelous. Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Synchronized swimmers.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And also Marty in the other pre tape where he's like the nervous guy smoking. I didn't say that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, that one's great.

[Andy Samberg]

And then Billy has another really famous one, right.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, is it? I hate it when that happens.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes, exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

With Christopher Guest.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes, exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

That's a great sketch.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, those are the ones that just pop into my mind. And I'm sure there's more.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And then Jackie Rogers. The Jackie Rogers sketch.

[Andy Samberg]

Exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

And what's Taylor, Marty, Ed Grimley.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. I must see.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, that's.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, very good.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, just off the top of our heads, that's what, six or seven?

[Seth Meyers]

That's a good amount for first times.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, probably 80s times when there's like Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Schneider, like a lot of people doing very, like, quotey characters is also in the mix.

[Seth Meyers]

I was sorry to miss you Saturday toast. But it was very funny because it was sort of a toast to Lauren. And Lauren got up and genuinely said, and it was about 11:30 at night, maybe a little bit earlier, but he said, well, thank you so much, but I've got to go back downstairs now because we have a show tomorrow.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And it was like the dream Lauren toast, which is Lauren always wants to be toasted as an inconvenience to the work.

[Andy Samberg]

That seems right.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I think it's the coolest way to exit.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

It was trippy being in New York and seeing like, every cab and surface covered with ads for the 50th while working on it.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And also that the tagline was a special 50 years in the making, knowing that everyone there had started working on it pretty much the week before or that week.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And I was like, I mean, we're pulling from the 50 years, but in terms of, like, the actual making, that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Is very accurate and thrown together last minute, just like the rest of the show.

[Seth Meyers]

I want to just shout out that people. Certainly you more than me, Andy, as far as the work you put in, the people that work on the show now that also got drafted to work on the 50th. I feel like it's been 18 months of talking about it while also not being able to start working on it because of the way the show is wired and Lauren is wired. So there was just this building pressure with no way to actually release it, because the only thing that allowed release was just getting within a week of the show.

[Andy Samberg]

That's right. Also, they were doing other shows, like, almost all the way up till they were doing Timmy Chalamet, like, two weeks before.

[Seth Meyers]

And I think they maybe stretched it, like it was maybe two weeks of work as opposed to a normal one. Yeah, but there was a table read the week before, and that was another. When it was over, I realized, oh, this was the last time. And it was so special because it was mostly writers.

[Andy Samberg]

I was jealous of not getting to go to that table. That would've been cool.

[Seth Meyers]

I really. One of the best parts of this entire ordeal for me was hanging out with current SNL writers and just that feeling of, you know, sitting on a couch in somebody's office and just talking shop about the show. Because I feel like I knew a fair amount of them, but some I'd never met before. And I just got to hang out with them. But they just did such an incredible job.

[Andy Samberg]

I love that it casually became an ordeal and no one blinked when you said that. Yeah, this whole ordeal.

[Seth Meyers]

It was an ordeal. It was totally, totally an ordeal. But do you guys know, like, that group like Bulla and Jake Nordwin and Mike Ticenzo and Sierra and August and Sudie Green, Alison Gates. It's a great group of writers.

[Andy Samberg]

I know a lot of them now because I went back earlier this season, and they're all great.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, right. And Streeter and, you know, Streeter and Mikey, who do so much. I mean, all of them do great work on the show.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Seth Meyers]

Week in and week out. But it was very cool to get to sort of sit at the table and see them up close and personal. And then so many of. I mean, the people that are still there from our time, like Ken Sublette and Brian Tucker and Eric Kenward, but also the ringers they brought back, like, you know, Spy Ivey and James Anderson and Paula Pell.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

You know, obviously, Mulaney and Tina.

[Andy Samberg]

Simon. Rich.

[Seth Meyers]

Simon, Rich. Yeah. I thought the cut to the Writers in the Rain was a very nice moment in the Steve Martin monologue.

[Andy Samberg]

It was funny.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, I wish that it had been so many People, I liked the group that they had, but I wanted it to be like 500.

[Seth Meyers]

It was a good group. The other thing is that the fact that Jim Downey was wearing an eye patch because two days earlier he fell off the stage at Radio City. He's fine, but had to be.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Taken away in an ambulance.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

You know, that's Jason Reitman. Saturday Night Movie. One of the things people say is, you know, they take a lot of events and, like, kind of compress them into the 90 minutes before the first show, but they happen over the course of years. That felt like a moment that you would fake to make happen the week of the 50th, which is like. And then Downey fell off the stage and now he has an eye patch. You'd be like, yeah, that happened like seven years before the 50th.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That didn't real. That wasn't real.

[Andy Samberg]

Seth Lee, Rob Klein also came back, helped me with the medley, who oversaw that.

[Seth Meyers]

It was great to see Klein.

[Andy Samberg]

And honestly, I think maybe worth taking a moment to specifically point out Jost.

[Seth Meyers]

Right, Jost.

[Andy Samberg]

You and I were talking about this while it was all happening, where I was like, jost did so much fucking work on that thing and wrote so many care. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Took. Fed so many mouths truly.

[Andy Samberg]

And wrote really funny shit.

[Seth Meyers]

Jost is wired and it just speaks to his core, sweetness. He's wired to take care of people. And, you know, he wrote that New York musical and I think there were like 35 people in it.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And maybe my favorite line of the entire 50th was David Spade being back in his seat.

[Andy Samberg]

Same. It was my favorite joke in the whole thing.

[Seth Meyers]

Perfect line and exceptional delivery.

[Andy Samberg]

Just hands down, my favorite joke in the whole special. And that's saying a lot. I got a feel for it.

[Seth Meyers]

Perfectly written, perfectly delivered.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's so snl. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just keeps going.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Credit where credit's due. That New York musical is wonderful.

[Andy Samberg]

It was so fun seeing fucking Nathan Lane doing Hakuna Matata about cocaine. Disney's going to be psychedel. Another one of those jokes. I was like, fuck, that's good.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Nathan Lane was wonderful. And then Scared Straight. You know that in a night where it takes a second to parse everything that is going on. The fact that Will and Eddie were in a sketch together.

[Andy Samberg]

So rad.

[Seth Meyers]

So rad.

[Andy Samberg]

And both just killing and both super loose.

[Seth Meyers]

Super loose, super present. And that moment where all three of them with Kenan got mad and did a single file towards the camera and.

[Andy Samberg]

They all Buzzed the lens. It's so funny.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. That was the other pinnacle for me.

[Andy Samberg]

Seeing Dunese and Gule together was special for me as those two characters are like two of my favorite characters.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Ok to say something dumb. That hasn't happened before, right?

[Seth Meyers]

No, has not.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But they're like made to go together. It's just fucking fantastic.

[Andy Samberg]

I've never been in the building for a goulet, but before we worked on the show and we've talked about this a lot. The goulet stuff was so, so fucking beloved in our friend group. It's like we would quote it constantly.

[Seth Meyers]

And it is the genius of the way Will made famous people characters.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes, exactly.

[Seth Meyers]

Neil diamond became a character, not. It wasn't actually based.

[Andy Samberg]

He did a thing that was goulet ringtones, I think.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And I like went on the Internet somehow and downloaded the ringtone and made it my ringtone on my flip phone.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Which one was that? Which one was it?

[Andy Samberg]

Dinkle dongle, dinkle dongle, someone's calling you Goulet dinkle dongle. Stuff like that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Like a man who truly doesn't understand a cell phone.

[Andy Samberg]

Dinkle dongle, dinkle dongle.

[Seth Meyers]

I want to say. Cause Spade had more in that sketch for someone. You were in it as well, Andy. But I thought Kyle and Beck, who had each had one moment in Domingo, were both so perfect and great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

They were really good.

[Seth Meyers]

And I really liked knowing. Cause there's also that level of difficulty when you have one moment in a show like that.

[Andy Samberg]

Kyle able to sing in his character. Like just kid and kid.

[Seth Meyers]

Also your marriage is healthy.

[Andy Samberg]

You're just like, oh, God.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So.

[Seth Meyers]

And Beck was so aggressive.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, true.

[Seth Meyers]

The two of them together also. It was that sweet moment where you realize, God, you guys are. I'm so glad you found each other because you don't overlap at all.

[Andy Samberg]

They occupy the correct space for each.

[Seth Meyers]

Other in style and taste. They do. 100%.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Also Domingo has that. You know, the core premise of it is so funny. The jokes in it are great.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

That Scottsdale is a super funny joke.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

That you're both from Scottsdale and it's also your name. They're the three Scots. And I'm Dale.

[Andy Samberg]

Meryl was great.

[Seth Meyers]

Meryl in Close Encounters. I mean, it's weird because you kind of expect it and yet it's still amazing to see.

[Andy Samberg]

Still very fun. The moment where she sort of turns and starts hitting on Pedro Pascal is when it. Get it took it up a notch.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

She calls it mustache.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. A very patient hitting on our friend Rachel Dratch. Totally in the pocket as Debbie.

[Andy Samberg]

Did we say this already, Seth, that we locked eyes when it started killing.

[Seth Meyers]

We were like, yeah, I don't know if we did, but it was. It was a moment.

[Andy Samberg]

We're just like, oh, my God. Debbie Downer is about to Crush at the 50th. This is so thrilling. And De niro.

[Seth Meyers]

De niro. Perfect, perfect. Black Jeopardy. Which remains one of the great sketches in the history of the show. Michael Che.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Was Eddie doing a better Tracy than Tracy? Weigh in on the comments.

[Seth Meyers]

Tracy. The moment where Eddie said, as Tracee, we do look like we could be related. And Tracy wouldn't look at him and said, I don't see it. That's also. That's Brian Tucker and Michael Che, who write that thing. And also Che, I don't think would mind me saying. I saw him right after he had gotten off the phone with Eddie and they had talked about him doing Tracy. Morgan and Eddie had just. Literally just started talking as Tracy, and Che was just transcribing.

[Andy Samberg]

Amazing.

[Seth Meyers]

Chase said that four cheese lasagna was something that Eddie just said when she was like, do you want to do Tracy? And he just said that. And it was like, okay, so we're good.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I guess so.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, Sandler song.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It's like someone calling their shot because he's done it so many times.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

But the idea that he comes out with a guitar and you sort of know it will be sentimental and deeply funny, and it will not ever drift into schmalzy. It will just feel like he's speaking.

[Andy Samberg]

To your heart because you know him and you trust him. So you're like, if he decided this is what it should be, then it's probably right.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That was my favorite part of the show. I really teared up.

[Seth Meyers]

Maybe my favorite observation in the entire show was that needle where you thread it, you make an inside joke that people on the outside immediately get why it's funny.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, for sure. Which, by the way, that was the challenge of what he did and of what we did.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And arguably was a little more for people who worked there in moments, for people who never did.

[Seth Meyers]

You had people approach you afterwards. We were walking out, the people who worked on the show, Andy, who said it was their favorite thing.

[Andy Samberg]

Cathartic was something that was said to me by a lot of people who worked at the show over the many generations, which made me feel great.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Little BTs on Sandler's song, you wouldn't have seen this at home because we were in commercial break, Sandler walks out.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, I know what you're going to say.

[Andy Samberg]

People give him a little half cheer. And then I was sitting right in front of Rob Schneider. I was like, oh, boy, here it comes. Here comes. And then we. You can do it.

[Seth Meyers]

One of the bigger laughs of the night.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, everyone laughs, but also it's like, we know you can do it. Everyone laughs. It settles back down. And then Sandler's like, aha. All right, buddy. And then it gets quiet. And then he's kind of just sitting there for a little while. And then again, Schneider goes, too long. He was made to wait too long in front of the audience. And that made everyone laugh. Fucking awkward. And it was very funny.

[Seth Meyers]

It was great. The person who made me laugh the hardest in between the commercial breaks was Jon Lovitz was one seat away from me. Jon Lovitz is so funny. And every time Chris Kelly, the stage manager, would say, like, 15 seconds back, he would go, hey, Seth. Like, loud enough for, like, the people in our section here. He'd be like, hey, Seth, did you audition for the show? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, I'd love to hear the story. I think we all would. Really funny veterans. And every time I got up a few times and I had to walk past him, and every time I'd come back in the aisle and need him to move, he would go, you again. I kept going down and bringing Waters back. Andy, you did.

[Andy Samberg]

And it was very appreciated.

[Seth Meyers]

Cause it's three and a half hour show and I feel the freedom of movement because it's also the floor I work on.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

But most everybody was sort of glued to their seat.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And if I had a highlight moment, it was. I was walking up with eight waters and Keith Richards was on the aisle. And I said, hey, Keith, you need a water? He was like, oh, thanks, mate.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, nice.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, you guys. Not that I wasn't in your section, but I wasn't in your section because I wasn't allowed there. So I was in Seth's stage, which was the overflow.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah. How was Vibes in the overflow?

[Akiva Schaffer]

It had a lot of hitters in there. I'm not gonna name names. But we actually immediately fled and went up to Higgins Room and hung out with Shur and Dennis. And, like, it was so nice to be back in that. Like, we spent a lot of shows in Higgin's office making gin and tonics. And it was just nice to be in the guts of the building again.

[Seth Meyers]

With everybody but they did sort of turn my studio into. There was a bar, there were seats. And I talked to people, said it was a pretty fun vibe in there.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was nice. It was nice. But, you know, we bounced immediately.

[Andy Samberg]

Were people watching the show in the other stage?

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was harder to. Which is part of the reason why I wanted to watch Higgins, honestly, was just like. To focus on it with, like, writers.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Oh, you went up for good nights, Obviously.

[Andy Samberg]

I did.

[Seth Meyers]

That was a very fun stage to be on.

[Andy Samberg]

It was crazy. But there was a moment where it was so crowded that it got a little uncomfortable.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. But then it was lovely. Everywhere you turned, there was somebody.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, I got a hug from Sir Paul McCartney.

[Seth Meyers]

Pretty good.

[Andy Samberg]

Pretty good. Kind of top moment in life.

[Seth Meyers]

You know who was one of my top moments? Who I talked to, who I'd never met, who was on the show, but my connection to him is his work outside the show was Anthony Michael Hall.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Who could not have been sweeter and was lovely to talk to.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, cool.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I've never met him.

[Seth Meyers]

There was also. What did you and I do as soon as the show was over?

[Andy Samberg]

Well, we and our respective wives and shoemaker went to your dressing room and had a nice nip of bourbon altogether in sort of a peaceful, calm moment after the craziness.

[Seth Meyers]

We gave ourselves half an hour before we went over to the party. And I think it was a necessary reset.

[Andy Samberg]

It was. And it filled me with a lot of happiness.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. The party, which was amazing, was also so loud.

[Andy Samberg]

Well, it was massive, though.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. So we did find our way to a room that was a little bit quieter, but it was.

[Andy Samberg]

But I heard after the next week, I heard there were rooms I never even saw.

[Seth Meyers]

Really.

[Andy Samberg]

It was a huge, big, open, sprawling thing with many, many caverns.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. I mean, I say it might be the last great showbiz party. Okay. I don't know what is ever gonna.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Be like, wait, how late did you guys stay at that Jamie jam?

[Andy Samberg]

I wanna say, like, till like, 4, 3:30 maybe.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Okay.

[Seth Meyers]

How about you, Joran?

[Akiva Schaffer]

3. Me and Mari were. We got fucking kids, bro. Not like you guys.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it's true. I did take my kids. I poorly scheduled a trip to the Bluey Experience.

[Andy Samberg]

You sent me a picture of it the next morning and I was like, holy shit.

[Akiva Schaffer]

What time did you go?

[Seth Meyers]

11:00Am but we were up at 7:00am.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Wait, what were your. What were your guys best experiences with cool, famous people at the party?

[Andy Samberg]

Well, we said Bonnie Ray. That was.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, that's very cool.

[Seth Meyers]

Bonnie Ray was A plus.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, it's crazy that I was saying this. There were so many famous people that you see, people that are, like, used to being the center of all gravitational pull at a party, walking around by themselves, like, looking for someone to talk to.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yes. Which is always funny.

[Andy Samberg]

It's so funny. We were like, oh, there goes a huge movie star. It's like, oh, I guess I'm just kind of nursing my drink.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I'm not just saying this, but it was an absolute joy to just see people who worked at the show. Like, I loved running into Betsy Torres, who was our. We spent a lot of time with a censor at NBC, I believe.

[Seth Meyers]

I heard it was her last show.

[Andy Samberg]

She retired.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, that was her last show. She went out with that show. She went out saying to Higgins, the lines and scare straight are not okay. Well, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, he literally says, like, come into your brown or something, right?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, but it's a. It's a play on words.

[Andy Samberg]

It is not.

[Seth Meyers]

That one.

[Andy Samberg]

I was like, holy shit, you can't say that.

[Akiva Schaffer]

So that was her mic drop. She was like, you can't say that. Drop the mic. See you later.

[Seth Meyers]

By the way, in the first draft Joe showed me, at one point, they said something like that. And so they said, whoa, Macintosh, come on, it's 7pm on the west Coast.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, they should have kept it. I know.

[Seth Meyers]

I thought it was great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's perfect.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, by the way, I wanted. I do think we should acknowledge every Scared Straight that we ever did. Sudeikis hopped back onto the desk, got bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It just kills.

[Andy Samberg]

And when it got to that moment in the sketch, me and you looked at each other, Seth, and we were like, here we go. Is he gonna do it? Yeah. He jumped back, like, four feet.

[Seth Meyers]

It was a really good one.

[Andy Samberg]

It was great.

[Seth Meyers]

I missed him. I didn't. One of the other things, the downsides of the after party is the people you realize you didn't see at the party.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And that night, I was in the car home and realized, oh, man, I never saw Suds. And I wrote him. I just want you to know how happy I was, because you really landed it. It was a real. He got, like, both cheeks hit the desk at the same time. It was a real hot air.

[Andy Samberg]

It.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it was great.

[Andy Samberg]

I didn't see him. I didn't see Forte. I missed a ton of people. There were people that were there that I didn't even know were there until the next day when I was, like, seeing news.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes. I like Lauren. Lauren. Yeah. Lauren was there. Oh, I. I do want to, because it was pure joy to be at the update desk.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. Nice work.

[Seth Meyers]

I was so. I mean, it's pretty much the same team that was running Update when I was there.

[Andy Samberg]

Wait, are we in Seth's Corner?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. You know what? Yoram, sing us in Seth's corner.

[Akiva Schaffer]

You're all invited.

[Andy Samberg]

Seth's Corner.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's happening right now. Take it away, sis.

[Seth Meyers]

Jost the best. As I said, he took care of a lot of people. He took care of me. He said, we'd love to get you an update. Do you want to run a feature? You know, the first time those guys used to do that was my era of update.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. Fred and Vanessa, very happy to see those characters back.

[Seth Meyers]

So fun. And also, Lauren was slow to sign off on the premise of them being Lauren's friends. That is just a case where Lauren doesn't, like, take to ask or okay attention towards him.

[Andy Samberg]

Sure.

[Seth Meyers]

It's not his style.

[Andy Samberg]

Sure.

[Seth Meyers]

With that said, he gave it the okay and the two great things. One, I mean, the best thing about my time hosting Update was just being close to people who were crushing. I just loved it so much.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And I had eyes on Lauren because much like you when you were doing Domingo, you could see the faces of the people. I knew exactly where Lauren was. Lauren was laughing so hard at Fred and Vanessa, and he was also laughing in a way because they were talking about him. And there's that part where they say he was going out to eat, and they're like, what about us? And he's like, you two don't look like you have much trouble finding food. And Lauren made a face like, no, I wouldn't like, even. Like, even though he knew it was a joke, I felt like he had to make a look like I would never. I also had a great moment, which I was like, oh, there's no reason not to do this. Which is, you know, I was sitting next to Jost, and basically, you know, they do, you know, you know how it works. They do a run, I say a line. They do another run, I say a line. And I just, like, reached over and put my hand on Joe's leg to be like, look at us.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And. And he was like, just put his hand on top of my hand. And it was just like, one of the nicest moments to be like, oh, look at us.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's fantastic.

[Andy Samberg]

Asking this question is probably going to ruin the niceness of the moment.

[Seth Meyers]

No, I feel very confident it won't.

[Andy Samberg]

No.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We know what's coming, so it can't possibly ruin it.

[Andy Samberg]

Y'all get boners.

[Akiva Schaffer]

But really, did you though?

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, I think as soon as you said it, every single person listening to this was like, oh, did they get boner, Zoe?

[Seth Meyers]

Look, I already had one because I always got one when a feature was working.

[Andy Samberg]

Dag to the wood.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's how much you like comedy, Bobby.

[Seth Meyers]

Really fun to watch. Bobby and Cecily, they were both wonderful. Bobby, that again, it's Jost. I mean Jost writes both of those too with, you know, the respective stars of it. Cecily and him, right Girl came to write and then he writes Drunk uncle with Bobby. And drunk uncle, you forget, has like a three act structure where he always comes out and is like he's a blowhard. And then he like starts like admitting like it all comes from a place of like self doubt.

[Andy Samberg]

Then he cries and then he says really, really harsh shit.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. But it like that thing where like, so maybe I'm not land shark. Like that was the most meta moment of the whole thing. Was like drunk uncle realizing I'm not a land shark. Really, really good.

[Andy Samberg]

I feel like we're forgetting something. There was so much.

[Seth Meyers]

There was so much.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was like a wedding. It was just like a sprawling. You couldn't take it all in.

[Seth Meyers]

And when it's over, you're like, oh, I wish I just could have slowed down time a little bit.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, it's almost as if you wished you could turn back time.

[Seth Meyers]

Turn back time.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Ooh, she did well too.

[Seth Meyers]

She did great. Has she ever sung it? Not in the clothes from the video. That is to me the greatest part about it.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It's so impressive. Like I was immediately like, God, I want to look like that when I'm her age.

[Andy Samberg]

Is that what you were thinking?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, like if I could be that fit. Also Bonnie Raitt too.

[Seth Meyers]

I'm like, oh my God.

[Akiva Schaffer]

The two of them were like yorms.

[Seth Meyers]

Corner is just him. Like really into older women.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, I bet Seth, I told this to Andy, but I bet my wife that I could look like Jeremy Allen White from his Calvin Klein photo shoot by the end of this year. So I'm very focused on health right now.

[Seth Meyers]

Great. You know, know when did you place the bet?

[Akiva Schaffer]

January 1st.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay. Cuz I was worried that was going to be the answer. I have not seen much difference in the first two months.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, to be fair, on this podcast we don't show people the video of the podcast. But I haven't done it shirtless.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it Would explain why you've just been doing, like, very slow curls. Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Off to the side. Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Another thing that's nuts to me as I talk about how happy I am that I'm not doing late night this week. They're back. Back today.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. The Etch A Sketch of, like, hey, you did a great job. Now do it again.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Last special, the 40th, there was kind of like a legendary concert at the after party.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I was told people did perform at the 50th, but I kind of missed all of it somehow.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's why I was jealous. I assumed you guys stayed for that because I heard there were some pretty good matchups, like Forte performed with Eddie, maybe, and some other stuff.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, really?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. Some other, like, good stuff happened, and we missed it.

[Seth Meyers]

Haim. I know. Haim got up there.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. I got to know Heim was there there.

[Seth Meyers]

I did.

[Andy Samberg]

I hung out with them a lot.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Fine.

[Andy Samberg]

I'm better friends with them than you.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Well, I was in one of their videos.

[Seth Meyers]

That's true. Damn it. It also compared to the 40th. One difference. There were way more live sketches, which I thought was very cool, and less reliance on. Less reliance on montages, which I thought at the time, I thought was great. And yet the amount of people I talked to who said, I wish there had been more montages. I love those so much. And you just realize, oh, there's a reason people love watching old montages. And like the commercial one, which was, again, Colin Jost wrote that really funny intro with Alec Baldwin and Sarah Sherman joke about Alex.

[Andy Samberg]

I should have corrected people on. That is a very funny joke.

[Seth Meyers]

It's a very good Jost joke. And then the In Memoriam montage, which was Steve Higgins brainchild, was so fun as well.

[Andy Samberg]

It was definitely interesting to watch.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. You know how you said, Andy, yours was for the room? That was the most. Not for the room.

[Andy Samberg]

Right. I think in retrospect, the one we made was more for the other studio room than the room we were even in.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Like, the room we were in. The biggest cheer of the night was Donna, because it was all hosts.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, that was a great joke. And Donna was great. Her performance was great.

[Andy Samberg]

Oh, my God. Donna crushed the joke.

[Akiva Schaffer]

The timing of that was fucking flawless.

[Andy Samberg]

Jason Momoa, by the way, did you already tell us that? We saw the moment when they saw each other at the after party, and Donna. And Donna. And he wrapped her up in a huge bear hug, and it was so sweet and funny and cute.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Did either of you guys get to hang out with Spidey at all. I didn't get to see Spider.

[Seth Meyers]

I did. I got some good stuff.

[Akiva Schaffer]

That's great.

[Seth Meyers]

She also was on my show, which was really fun.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Andy, I don't want to put you on the spot, but you ate shit super hard on the bee yesterday.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah, but I got queen bee clean today.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. By the way, I think I was like 19 off yesterday.

[Andy Samberg]

I bailed. 12 shorts. The worst showing I've had maybe in three years. It was a tough one, but it was nice to bounce back today. A full clean be.

[Seth Meyers]

Clean be.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah, a clean be. I. It's shocking that we haven't heard that on this podcast.

[Seth Meyers]

It really is shocking. I want to give a quick shout out to how the opening Blues Brothers number that Jimmy did was so high energy and fantastic and felt so authentic. To the Blues Brothers. And then it was so funny to me how winded he was.

[Akiva Schaffer]

He was. That was great.

[Andy Samberg]

I will say it was satisfying cuz I was like, how's he not winded? And then as it ended, I was like, oh, I see.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, he was in appropriate amount of winded. No shade.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah. I couldn't have done a third of that.

[Seth Meyers]

No.

[Andy Samberg]

Was that really him singing?

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was good.

[Seth Meyers]

It was great. It sounded like I had to be. Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

Couldn't believe it.

[Seth Meyers]

It was great. And the dancing was so fantastic.

[Andy Samberg]

So great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Wait, hold on.

[Andy Samberg]

We.

[Akiva Schaffer]

We haven't talked about my cupcake dancing though, guys. That was really good too. It was.

[Seth Meyers]

You did a great job.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

[Seth Meyers]

I met Diva for the first time, which was super exciting.

[Andy Samberg]

Mike Diva directed the short.

[Seth Meyers]

When did you decide to just start grabbing people clapping?

[Andy Samberg]

Pretty early on.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay, gotcha. So that was always the plan.

[Andy Samberg]

Mike Diva's brother Dave made that beat and when he sent it, we went through a few iterations and I picked and chose things from a few different versions and put them together. I love that beat.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

I asked for like a Billy Ocean esque vibe and he delivered in spades. But he did the breakdown musically that turned into the. Every single person who ever worked.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

And I think there were maybe even hand claps in the beat that immediately made me be like, oh, we should get everyone who's ever worked there saying this line and clapping or looking like they had anxiety and clapping.

[Seth Meyers]

I was very happy because we got called up to do it and Shoemaker was just coming with me to come with me to go like visit you as well. And then because he was there, you guys forced him to do it.

[Andy Samberg]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

And Shoemaker not in a million years would have said yes unless he was in a situation that he was in where he was susceptible to being bullied.

[Andy Samberg]

And then because we didn't want to dog out any of the crew that never get any camera time, we ended up putting you in a split screen with Will Ferrell and some other people.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. But it was great. And the crew was, you know, a lot of those guys work on my show and they were so psyched to have been in it.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, it was a love letter to everyone who ever worked there.

[Seth Meyers]

Love letters. We love a love letter. You love to love.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Yeah. It's so weird that none of it's true, though. And it doesn't cause anxiety and it doesn't make you take anti anxiety pills or anything like that.

[Andy Samberg]

The number of people that went out of their way to mention that they connected with the IBS joke.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Oh, really? I was wondering about that.

[Andy Samberg]

Look, I polled a bunch of people and then just inserted all the information into the song.

[Seth Meyers]

The Pipes could talk. Was that. Oh, well, no, my favorite was the coal mine break.

[Andy Samberg]

Coal mine break was all Akiva Shaffer.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I loved it.

[Seth Meyers]

Did he have the setup? Had somebody said the coal mine thing first or was the entirety of it it set up in entirety?

[Andy Samberg]

Was him. I sent him a long voice note of the ideas I had had so far for the song before I'd even written a word of it. And he wrote back or sent a voice note back being like, oh, yeah. And at one point you could do this. It was basically the first three lines of the coal mine thing. And then we added notes from Lauren.

[Seth Meyers]

The notes from Lauren was great.

[Andy Samberg]

And drinking sweet tea.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was the coal miner tapping his knee nervously. That was my favorite.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, there we go. I mean, well, wait.

[Andy Samberg]

Save the best for last. Yorm. Talk us through the cupcake.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, talk us through the cupcake.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Okay. So it was hot in there. The material was hot. But I persevered. I got into it. I got into it early too, when they were like, you know, you have five minutes.

[Seth Meyers]

No way.

[Akiva Schaffer]

I'm in it early. So I'm ready to get on. I get the sleeves on, I get the tight things on and the boots and everything. I had to practice the squeezing of the cat to make the. The smoke come out. Out. I actually stayed after rehearsal was over to make sure that I knew how to work the cat in the big gloves and everything like that. So I was there. I made it happen. And I was so thankful to just be a part of this big celebration that was like, honoring what this show meant over 50 years to so many people. And so I. I was there. I loved it.

[Seth Meyers]

That was great.

[Akiva Schaffer]

All right, until the next 50th.

[Andy Samberg]

I mean, do we think there's going to be a 50 50th?

[Akiva Schaffer]

Fifth? We should probably pause until the next 50th.

[Seth Meyers]

I think they should probably just do a 51st. I mean, I just think they should. You know, you were saying about the taxicabs, and I. You know, it's kind of like life at snl because, again, I worked in the building. The entirety of the 30 Rock subway station was postered with all of our faces.

[Andy Samberg]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I didn't take a single picture of it. I realized today it's down. They kept it till last night. And I. I'm like, what was the point of any of this if you can't, like, document it? And the reality is, you don't document it, because the only way to be effectively a part of SNL is to be hyper present on the work.

[Andy Samberg]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

And I always feel like I'm jealous of people who. You know, the amount of people who did, like, photo dumps over the course of the weeks leading up to it, I feel like I did not take a single picture in the time I was there, almost because I thought it would jinx it.

[Andy Samberg]

I didn't take any photos either, and I think maybe I blew it.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Andy Samberg]

But again, nose to the grindstone, man.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Well, guys, we're gonna move back in time for the next episode. But it was really. I mean, it was lovely seeing you both. It was very special. I feel like it's gonna take a long time to process the old SNL 50th, but I'm glad that I have you guys to do it with.

[Akiva Schaffer]

It was nice to be there in person.

[Seth Meyers]

All right, well, I love you guys.

[Andy Samberg]

Love you, buddy.

[Akiva Schaffer]

Love you, too, guys.

[Seth Meyers]

Very special thanks to Airbnb for their help sponsoring this episode. It was a delight to record, and we hope you enjoyed listening to it.