Listener Q&A Episode 10

(upbeat music) ♪ Hey, hey, it's the lonely island ♪ ♪ And Seth Mayer's podcast show ♪ - Hey everybody, welcome to The Lonely Myers and Seth. - Great. - To Coney podcast. - Here's what's happening today. - Yeah. - It's me and Yorm and you know what that means, Yorm. - Mmm. - You know what it means? - Red Bull. - No, it means you're the Alvin. There's literally no art jazz today. - Yes, yes, yes. - Finally. It's a black joy. - No theater or bullshit. - Hey, this is just a fun thing for you guys to know. Yorm and I are about a year into trying to plan a dinner. (laughing) - Yeah. - Yeah, and the vasectomy too. We got to work. - Oh yeah, well, maybe that's it. Maybe dinner straight to the vasectomy I pick you up the next morning. Or the vasectomy I pick you up, we go straight to dinner. Either way. - Yeah, one. - That's the second one. - We're the New York boys on this pod and we have a friend Adam Palley, who's listening probably knows. And we've been trying to get dinner the three of us. And I feel like we're on the cusp. - We're Seth, we're fucking it up. This podcast is fucking up our actual friend in real life energy, you know. - I know, but I do feel closer to you doing the pod than I would otherwise. So, you know, the tradeoff's been good. Hey, you sent me the trailer to your movie over your dead body. Is that trailer public yet? - It is not yet. What would you think of it though? - I thought it was outstanding. - Yeah. - I'm really excited for people to watch it. I won't spoil it, but I will say that, you know, when your arm was over in Finland, it wasn't all just saunas. - We did some work. - It's a work and it's a full, it's also very funny to realize that I know we talked about it. This movie does not take place in Finland. - No, it takes place in upstate New York. And I think I told you guys this, but when we were driving up to our temporary location, which is like two hours from Helsinki, I was like, fuck, this looks like upstate New York. Like, why couldn't we shoot in upstate New York? - Yeah. - My wife said that too. She was pretty pissed. - Yeah, you can't send her pictures that prove how it should really be closer. - No, there are burst trees, it's different. - Somebody said, and I'm a little worried that you won't have the ability to do it on a two-man pod instead of a four-man pod, but there's been a lot of compliments in the comments for the little jokes you sort of mutter under the din of the crosstalk. - Give me an example of that. - I don't know. - Nobody remembers that. - Somebody, I don't even remember the context, but somebody wrote, I laughed so hard when your arm said, but that's what generals do. - Oh, yeah. - Again, don't quite remember the context, but-- - Well, just for our listeners to know, a lot of them get cut out. (laughing) 'Cause there's more muttering that happens with me, and I'd say a majority get cut out and the ones that make it in, fucking winners. - I also owe you a great deal of thanks because you sort of, you know, this is not the intention, but you gave people a lot of ideas as to what Spider-Man I should play in the next Spider-Verse movie. - A lot of ideas, you'd call that a lot of ideas. - No, I'm gonna tell you the Spider-Man they think I should play and you're gonna realize why this is your idea. Seth should play the Spider-Man with teeth. - Yeah. - That's great. - See you'll cut out. - Almost never see his teeth. I wouldn't say if the Spider-Man smiled while wearing the mask, it would be maybe the scariest thing that's ever been one of those men. - That is so funny. You almost never see his teeth. That is true. - I mean, if they look, I'm just saying, if they wanna hear me, I'll record one ADR line, which is like, yeah, I got teeth. And then they just animate that and all the kids scream. - Oh my God, I would love it. That is by the way, by the way, fucking great that like who we're talking to is fucking Phil and Chris, Phil Lord, Chris Miller. - Yeah. - Those guys are gonna hear this and it's all possible. Like listen, everything is not an impossibility. - Everything in that movie is already an easter egg. - Exactly, exactly, you need more. - I mean, again, I'm not asking to be the lead in the main universe, I'm just asking for a line from one of the many verses. - Yeah, they built in cameo fucking supreme over there. - There was a little shade for the Betty White episode. Somebody wrote, for anyone who just wants to hear about the digital short, skip to one hour and two minutes. - We're getting, by the way, we're getting, this almost follows how bad we got with making the shorts. Every week we got like later and later until by the end. I think year seven, I remember distinctly like, finished shooting at like five a.m., start editing at like seven after like, resting for an hour and a half. I think that we're going that direction. Like we're barely covering what's going on. - I, but I would just argue and I should say, some of the members of Quaid Army in the comments, pushed back on the snarkiness of that to say, at this point if you're just listening to them talk about the shorts, you're sort of missing the point. And I like that we're kind of weaning ourselves off the reliance of talking about the shorts. - We're weaning ourselves off the premise of this podcast. - Off the premise of the podcast. - Great. - Again, we're running out of road, you're. - Oh, I don't know what's going to happen. I know fucking Andy's thrilled about that. He can't wait to fucking hit that. - And by the way, just for anybody who's like, when are they getting to the short, we're not getting to the short today 'cause it's just two of us. This is going to be a little Q and A, a little, um, listener notes. - Do we talk about like sloths and like, things that aren't like digital shorts, but like? - We've talked about sloths and drafts, right? We cover that. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Can we get a database to your arm that you could just Google? Can I just say, yesterday I went to my pain doctor and I told him how much gap I've been on and he was like, are there any side effects? And I was like, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he's like, my memory was bad before, but now it's fucking-- - Also, we're six minutes into the podcast. When you got on, you were drinking from the biggest thermos I've ever seen and now you have a little coffee cup. What's going on? - Did you know, did I, did you see what was in the coffee cup, though? - Oh. - Oh, you put, but what was in the giant thermos you started with? - That's just water. That's not, you know. - And now you're bringing a coffee cup full of Red Bull. - Oh my God. - My New Year's resolution is water and my, whatever the anti-news were like-- - Jeff, for the YouTube video, Jeff, can Yorma's face box be just the biggest thermos I've ever seen? - It's so big. That's like my mugs. - Hey, somebody said, I will throw myself off a ladder in Yorm's honor if he creates a full 12 track "Normal Guy" album. I know you like a challenge. - Can I tell you a fun, normal guy story? - I mean, they're all fun. - Yeah, thank you, thank you. I know it's one of your favorites. So there is, it's on one of Ice Cube's album. I think it's America's most wanted, I'm not sure. But like, I know it might be Death Certificate. Yeah, it's definitely, so the opening of the album is Ice Cube being led to his death in an electric chair. And it's a very sinister, dark, moody interlude that starts the album. And I was somehow able to remove Ice Cube entirely from it and put "Normal Guy" in it. So it was him just going, yeah. Like, you know, you got me like, open 12. - Oh, hey, how's it going? - And then he's being led down the hallway. And he's like, hey man, hey man. I never did like you. So, you know? And then he, he gets led to the electric chair and he's like getting strapped in. And he's like, it's like very pee-wee. And then it's just ends with the Ice Cube's line, but said "Normal Guy" style, which is like, you got to need last words. And he's like, yeah, yeah, I got some last words. Fuck all you guys. - And then that was going to be the beginning of the album, which now, like I can't find it anywhere. Like, you know. - So that's, I mean, although I guess that we kind of got the totality of it, excellent performance. It's always an Ice Cube normal guy stuffed by the pod. - Red Bull Gips, you wings. (laughing) - Everybody agreed too. Burrito brand new Winter Soldier is the shirt we need. And someone on YouTube, Vandal in the comments, you know, who claim credit and I believe correctly. - Sorry, that's the person's name, Vandal. - That's their handle, Vandal's the handle. - You don't know that. - It could be Vandal. They have reported they're on a design. So hopefully soon they will share that with us as well. - I'm gonna share the design that I sent to Jeff for a shirt because it was a fuck around thing that I did on my phone. It stinks, so, but I'll make a better design. But you can put that in the little show. - Also, you know, it's speaking to Jeff. You know, people still very angry about the rerun episode we tried to sneak by him. And, you know, I just wanna say, like, we're not gonna do it again. But like Jeff bullies us into it. Jeff is like, he's like a boy band manager. He's like the Lou Perlman of podcasts. Like we're, you know, he's just like very pushy and aggressive and he makes us do things that we don't feel have integrity. - Well Seth, I offered to do this. Maybe he makes it worse or better, but I offered to do an episode solo. And he was like, yeah, I don't think we need that. (laughing) I was with over the holiday. I was with my very funny sister-in-law, Emily Heller. And I was like, "Man, I gotta do something with her." And I was like, kind of kicking around and Jeff was like, "No, we good, no, that's good." - Fuck the bird. - You were your two burrito brain to host. Is what? - Oh yeah, I think you could tell. - We talked about the challenge coins and how I was a general on the challenge coin. I was gifted and asked what your rank should be. Somebody said clearly, Andy and Akiva's rank should be admiral. Why, your arm? 'Cause the admiral spaceship? That's one version, but also that they're on a boat. - Yeah, nice. - Yeah. - But admiral spaceship is actually-- - I feel like we're crossing ranks, though. Is admiral, that's like now the Navy. - 'Cause that's not Army, right? That's Quaid Navy. - Yeah, that's Quaid Navy. I would be buck private, I'd say. - Yeah, that's probably fine. - What does the buck part mean? - I don't know. I'm not gonna get to the bottom of it. - Jeff, look it up. Look it up, Jeff. Oh, Jeff, well, I got you. Actually, a real question for you, Jeff. A lot of people say the Apple podcast upload keeps ending abruptly before we hear Arnold. People have to switch to YouTube to hear his later Quaid's. I don't know if that's Apple-wide or just this one person's phone. - Can I complain about the last episode? I thought it should end with us just be. being cut off, but I mean, Keith says something last thing, but I always like it when Arnold closes it up. - I kind of agree. I think since we don't have the other two here, I agreed with you when you said it. - Oh, but if they were here, you wouldn't. - No, I would take their side. - Bigger. - I'm a coward when they're here, but I'm brave when it's just you and me. - He's just so mean. - Congrats to our friend Amy Poehler, she won the Golden Globe first, the inaugural Golden Globe for podcasting. - You knew she would, right? The minute they even said the award, I was like, "Well, Poehler, it's getting good." - I do, I am hopeful for our behalf that you can't repeat in the podcast category. - That's not gonna be possible. I think we should just ask Amy to talk to Hans and Sven and everybody and put it over it. - You already, we talked about how, Keith maybe threw a little shade at older. Oh, wait, we have a book. - A private. - A private is in formal slang for a soldier at the absolute lowest rank. - Yeah, I was right. - So you're bucking for promotion. - Yeah. - This is a really informative podcast. - It is, I mean, especially when we're not, when we're not the weeds on these dumb shorts. Keith threw some shade at Lynn for constantly saying whether or not his kids liked or didn't like the shorts. - Yeah, he got, he got, he got Keith basically. He was like, "We don't care." - He got that fucking backfired pretty hard on him. - But Lynn did say that it just wanted us to know his 11 year old did love the Betty White short, which I think actually will like. - That's good. - Well, that almost like serves Keith's premise. But Lynn also sent a video of his son, not liking Ross Trent, which I did appreciate. But it was kind of a burn back. 'Cause there's nothing like the iron roll of an 11 year old to make me like shit. - I said, I mean, this is, I'm sorry to talk about the spelling bee. I'm almost on to our listeners here. You know, we have to do, we gotta clean up. I said it should be called a queen squeak when Andy gets a queen bee, clean. And then everybody pointed out, it should be a squeaky queen. - I'm sorry, a squeaky queen. - A squeaky queen. And then somebody wrote a squeaky queen is the andiest thing Andy didn't say. And I think that's actually a really good way of putting it. - Anytime you hear any one of our songs, and there's like over fucking word play like shit, it's always Andy and just know me and Akiva took it down a notch. Because we're like, - Oh, you can't fucking understand even what you're talking about 'cause it's so detailed. But you know, I love the guy. - Well, I love the guy. - People are still wondering where you land on Andy. Now you've at least put your flag on there. - Well, I love him and I hate him. - Somebody was commenting on just like the level of talent we've had in our criterion judges and worried that we might never be able to top it. And then someone said, who would I gonna have next PTA? - No, they said PTA and guess what? I bet he might do it. - Yeah, I bet he would. - I mean, what a great idea. - All those fucking guys that have to do real interviews and talk about art, I'm sure are pretty pumped to talk about some bullshit for a while. - Well, especially like we know, I mean, PTA was like present at creation during, I was not probably, he was there when it aired, when dick at a box aired, when the world changed. - Yeah. - Hey, we have a voice note or first voice note. - Wait, wait, wait, wait, before he gets in that voice note, I wanna just mention, this was sent to us and it's definitely for you. - Oh yeah, it's a bunch of Pittsburgh-stealer football cards. - I'm gonna send this to you regardless of whether you better know. - Yeah, I like when you know who they're for. - Oh yeah. - Those were my notes and now our first voice note is from Greg Chun, fuck composers, who composes our theme songs and no. - I haven't heard it, I'm very excited. Let's give it a roll. - Shit. ♪ Make way for the quaid on me ♪ ♪ Say hey is the quaid on me ♪ - Hey fellas, it's Greg Chun here, you're a jingle-writing guy. - And I wanted to send in my own voice note because I too have amusing little tidbits from the past, dating back to awesome town days. And I wanted to thank you for letting me write for the pod. And for continuing to let me work with you from time to time, because I actually have given you each a specific reason to not want to ever work with me ever again. Andy's is probably the most innocuous. It's just a case of mistaken identity. When you all called me to write the opening movie musical for the Emmys when Andy hosted. Andy thought I was somebody else. And we got on the meeting and he's just like, hey man, excited to work with you on this. We really enjoyed the work he did for us on. And it was some short that I did not work on. And I was like faced with a moment of, do I tell him that it's not me and risk. Like I really want to do this job with him. But in the end, I was such a rule follower. I was like, okay, Andy, well, I appreciate that. I'm actually, I didn't work on that one. So if there's like a certain special something that you wanted from that got one in particular, I'm not your guy. And Andy actually could not have even cared less. You were just like, oh, okay, well, for this one, we're gonna do this. I'm like, I feel like, okay, and a clear conscience. How awesome. Akivas is worse, a lot worse. In fact, it's probably the most epic career fail I've ever had. And we were working on the Bolton special, the sexy Valentine's Day special. And I think we'd sweeten the orchestra on 12 months till Chris or 10 months till Christmas. And we were coming down to like the final mix and like time was running out. So you gave me very specific instructions. Like for this number, for this number, I want you to have this one file that we had sort of like mostly approved before. I wanted on deck and I know we made these other changes, but if I don't have time to approve them, like I want you to have that one. And I basically lost it. And so when it came time to it, like you had to sit and re-approve and take all this time that you didn't have, continue to work on it. And we were all getting no sleep. And so it was really horrible. - I felt pretty bad about that, but you were very gracious about it. In fact, I think what you said verbatim in the very key diplomatic way was, yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what happened to that whole conversation. (laughing) - Very much, I'm not mad at this appointed moment and I felt really shitty. Your arms is probably the worst and the most embarrassing, because back in the day, after we had finished the awesome town pilot and everything, I was like, oh, okay, cool guys, whatever. Hey, Yorm, I'm having a party where we're gonna be watching the Holyfield fight on pay-per-view and you're like, oh, cool sick, I'll be there. And so I swear to God, like I'm not some loser, but for some reason, everyone else I invited that day like bailed at the last minute. And so Yorm shows up with a six-pack of beer at my apartment in Glendale and there's nobody there except for me and a television. And we were supposed to sit there and watch this fight and stuff and it was just really, I was just super mortified or whatever. And so I thought you just figured I was this freak, who had no friends and it was very awful. So yeah, well, that's it. Despite all that, you guys still let me play in the sandbox and I really appreciate it. Seth, unfortunately, I haven't worked with enough to have stories, but I will put out my two favorite Seth moments like in history that live rentry in my head. One is Zing Jackpot and the other is Total Cat Replacement. Okay. So that's it. You guys are awesome, bye. Oh my god. First of all, I love having a better mic come on than any of our partners. I know. It's like so smooth. He's so smooth. Somebody actually, which was really funny, said like, hey, I just want to note how much better Lynn and Quest's mics are than Sure and Tappers. And it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but yeah, that was the best mic we've had. That was a little surprising though. Yeah. Yeah. Greg is the best. It's so funny to eat it like awesome town. That means we've been working with him for over 20 years. It's funny. How did you come across him in awesome town? What was the first connection with him? Awesome town. I believe was Greg from, you know, it all becomes a blur. Obviously to me. Especially. One of the best things about, like, you have Blurrito brain. I do. I do. Like, always. And more and more so. But like, one of the best things about it being a triad between the three of us is that we are constantly collecting people. So I can't remember if Greg was from, I think it was MTV Music Awards that we picked him up from, like, something that we had done with him. And then Akiva, I think Akiva was the one who scooped him as a friend and like, we're working to get a forever. And we've just worked with him since I think that's right. But Keeville know better than I will because I'm a mess. But I really, I was very pro that quite army thing we heard at the top too. But by the way, we do that all the time. There's a guy named David Ninagall who we work with all the time who is like from Akiva doing the watch only at well who's a fucking incredible person. And these people that we go to all the time for, like, they are incredible. And Greg is one of those people. I think it's very nice. And I think it happens that SNL all the time, like, right? Any time you meet somebody that you enjoy collaborating with, you're like, oh, yeah. What's the point of moving on from this? By the way, David Ninagall, who does special effects, we have been completely fucked over by like, mic sure. Anybody who meets him just is like, he does all of the visual effects for loot now. He just told me recently for a loot, I think he said I have 1,400 shots to get through. And I was like, holy fuck, like, they're destroying his life. So please stop. Somebody wrote in Natasha. She was very delighted to learn that Yorma's daughter's favorite song is a Rylow Kylie song. What song was it? The song is called Better Son/Daughter. I don't know why it's called that. But it has a lyric that she loves, loves singing. Also Kim wrote in how we were talking about how both Andy and Yorma have been in Spider-Man to add to the connectedness. Jack Quaid was also a Spider-Man. Hey, hey, yeah, Jack, I can't do that thing. - Yeah, what are you looking at? - What are you looking at? - I'm Andy. - What's your cooking, Jack? - Hey, what's your cooking, Jack? (laughing) - Wait, hold on, I want to talk about a cool music hipster shit because of ReloKyly. When my son was four, we were looking shit up on YouTube. I came her white, I asked him what song he wants to hear. And he just said, "Mama's gun," that's what he said. Right? - Okay. - What happens to actually be a song? I just said, like, name two words. - Right, right. - And that's what he came up with, right? "Mama's gun" is a song by Glass Animals, who then had this massive fucking hit in "Heat Waves," like years and years later, so I think. So we were super into Glass Animals, and in particular, this song called "Mama's gun" forever. And there would be moments where I had like, at one point, I was looking at something else up on YouTube, and I was like, yeah, you want to check out some animals or something like that? Yeah, Glass Animals. And I was like, that's the most fucking hipster thing ever. And then super weirdly, then they had this massive hit years later, and I was like, oh, this guy's like a maven, my son. - He was ahead of it. He was ahead of the game. - Yeah, ahead of the curve. - This, I feel like Shelley, this might be some bad news for Shelley, but I'm going to just read this, and you knowing the current state of the music industry, I would like your answer, okay? - Okay, cool. - Yeah. - Question for the lonely island, but the 10th anniversary of pop stars release coming up, is there a possibility of the soundtrack getting a re-release? It's almost impossible to find a CD copy of the soundtrack, and I desperately want to get my hands on it. - I would say we can press for trying to get some vinyl, but I don't know if we can. - Yeah, that's true. Vinyl, I feel like, is the way. 'Cause it's, you know, at this point, you're re-releasing it for kind of sewers. - But, you know, like a lot of music industry people listen to this podcast, and I would imagine Monty Lippman that a universal record does, too. I mean, I can't imagine that he listens to any other podcast. - No, this will be the one. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Oh, he probably stopped after it took so long to get to the short-luster. - It'll probably happen without us even like doing anything. - Yeah. - Also, Shelley was very kind about how hard it is to put my appreciation into words. For the work that you and your cohort have done. - This is the work. - This is the work that we're doing. - Hey, I mean, we can talk about this one. Emily wanted to know. It's been a huge fan since "Awesome Town." I love you guys. Something I'd love to hear you talk more about the podcast. What family life looks like for people at SNL? How does that work with crazy schedules? How about now, did most of you start your families after SNL? Had you meet your spouses? As a working mom, I'm always curious about work, life, balance, especially within your industry. Thank you, PS Hot Rod is a masterpiece. I-- - Yes, please. - I mean, I met my wife when I was at SNL, but I can't even comprehend having kids when I was still at SNL. I mean, we didn't get married until I was done, and I don't think I would have been a particularly good husband. You were married while you were still at SNL. - I got married while we were at SNL, and you came to my wedding in a lot of SNLers did as well. It was very, very lovely. But when Marie got to the show, I remember her first show she went into the writers room, and there were a bunch of spouses in the writers room, and one of them leaned over to her, and I was like, "Ah, so you're part of the SNL widows." I was like, that was accurate, 'cause you're basically dead to the world. Yeah, when you're at the show. And it is a bummer, actually, because having so many friends on the show, I still have the sense of like, I don't wanna bother them, 'cause the level of anxiety that you have during a show week, you just do not wanna add to that. And anyways, shape forms, the idea of like hanging out with any place, especially on a show week, is like a nightmare. And there were many moments, I would say, this is the most distinct memory I have of being a failure as a husband, was getting a call from Marie. We're shooting with Natalie Portman. We was right before we shot with you, Seth. It was in her apartment, and I was holding playback for the song, and I was having to be like, "I'm sorry, well, I'm shooting with Natalie Portman right now." And she was like, "I just fell on the stairs, my back." And she heard herself really badly. I was like, "I gotta go." But it was just, and it's still to this day, between the two of us, a failure for our marriage. I mean, we always talk about, 'cause Alexi and I were, and by the way, I met Alexi at Chris Katan's wedding. So, S&L had a key role in every part of my life. But she would come to S&L every week, and you realize now, she talks about it, to pace your day that on Saturday, you will get in a taxi at 11 o'clock at night. To go, and again, working at the show, you're adrenaline is kicked in. Like I never felt tired at 11 on a Saturday. - Yeah, oh, you don't wanna go anywhere at 11, fucking the clock. - Oh, and driving into the heart, the mall of Times Square. - Oh, mess of it, oh, times. - When I went back and hosted in 2017, and I, at that point, had two, maybe just one. - Yeah, one kid. But I remember having to make time to go to the people. My biggest memories were people like Tucker, Brian Tucker is great writer at S&L. Steve Higgins, producer at S&L. Sort of say, "Hey, I wanna retroactively apologize "for the times in my head." I thought it was busted that you left to go see your kid in the school play. 'Cause like, you know what I mean? I realized now that I was a total piece of shit, and you had your priorities in order, and I cannot believe you did this job while also being a good parent, 'cause both of them did-- - Another massive regret that I have was a Keeva's, like, first week of having had his kid, his brother's first kid, and that we were shooting, I think it was with Nicki Minaj, and both me and Andy were like, "Get over here!" Like, we're just, like, the best moment of his life of having his daughter, and us just being like, "This fucking lazy piece of shit." - Yeah. - Like, just unbearable. And then, and then I, we can maybe cut this out, 'cause maybe it's talking about it too much, but like, but I also remember on the flip side of just my life revolving entirely around SNL, sleeping there almost twice a week, like, basically, like, on a Tuesday, we're gonna with four days 'til fucking 3 p.m. on a sketch that's never gonna get picked. So, sleeping over on Tuesday into Wednesday, and then sleeping again at the show on shitty couches, like, we should have invested in the cops or something. But, like, sleeping on four days' couch, which was a dumpy, like, picture that dumpy is couch-em. - Yeah. - I remember having this conversation with Mari, where we went to some play on some off-week, it was like some black box theater, and I was like, "This is so fucking cool, man." Like, this is like a East Village crazy little play, like, and she was like, "Have you never been here?" And I was like, "No." Like, how many times have you been here? And she was like, "10?" And I was like, "Okay." Like, you're actually having a life in New York, and my entire life was like, shooting in different places in New York. - Yeah. - But like, even Lauren, isn't, I remember saying, in the week of the 50, it's like, I remember like, when I moved to New York, I was like, "Oh my God, maybe one day I'll be able to get the keys to Lauren Michaels, New York City." And then I realized it's just 30 rock, three restaurants, and Yankee Stadium. (laughing) - You got the keys? You got the keys quick? - It's someone's like, "We don't know where Lauren is." I'm like, "I'll check the three places." (laughing) - Yeah, did you turn on the Yankee game? There we go. - Yeah. - You probably ain't right. Do you ever watch the Yankees on Yes, Lauren? If he's at the game, you can see him. Hey, Jeff, you want to play a voice over us? - I like these voice notes. - Hey Quades, my name is Andrea, and I am a preschool teacher in sunny SoCal. First, I have to give a shout out to Yorma for a little fox and the wild imagination. - Woo! - I love this book. The artwork explodes off the page, and I get to perform it with voices, which is super fun for the kids and for me. But it also gets them excited about reading. So bravo, I love it. - Thank you. I run a music dance and theater program for preschoolers as well, and I have drawn so much inspiration from The Lonely Island over the years. You sincerely inspire me to embrace my humor, be brave, remain open to collaboration. But most of all, to be resilient, because failure, just like preschoolers sometimes, will catch you with a sucker punch left and a sucker punch right. And then-- - Rocky Reppers. - 22 consecutive sucker punch rights. So my question is how do you recenter yourselves when you're up against the ropes? I really hope this reaches your earholes. I love you guys. Thank you so much. And later Quades. - Well, I want you to answer this question. Well, I just want to start by saying like, I'm going to test it in real time, because I'm on fucking tilt right now, because I also read a kid's book that went on mention. - Yes, ah, fuck you, step. - Don't look his up. - What is it called? What's it called? - It's called, I'm not scared, you're scared. But I mean, I don't know, man, it's so funny. I wish there was a way to give this advice better. But I mean, don't you kind of think, and it feels like that question comes from somebody who has wired the same way we are, that it's just kind of this like fight or flight thing with failure, and ultimately if you just want to do what we're doing more than anything else, you just keep trying, because like the only other thing is to like run away from it, and you're like, but I know this is where I want to be. I know this is what I want to be doing. - But I'll give concrete the example. Like what is one of your biggest failures or like the moment that you actually would have bailed on or should a normal person would have bailed on that? Do you have one? - I mean, I can't, like, I wasn't going to like say it as, and I'm like, I'm bad at this, I'm out. - Yeah. - But I certainly like, you know, you felt it. And like, you know, no one has ever gone into Lauren's office and been like, I'm going to save you the trouble. But had they, I might have. But I wasn't going to, because like I was like, I just, I will, and that was a thing too, because you know, and we've talked about it so much on the pod, but like again, failing at the table is like an incredible bruising of the individual. you go, you know, especially the longer you're there and the more you like like the people you're around, it doesn't get easier to eat shit. But you know how it feels to have it work at the table, and you're just chasing that I think keeps you going back for more. I think it really depends, though, too, because there are people who have had, and really, really fucking funny people who have come to the show, and for whatever reason, they doesn't work out in terms of maybe they have a purity of tone that just doesn't translate to like reading out loud in front of a hundred people, or like what, like they're really, really successful people who have been at SNL. I think we both, Seth and us have been incredibly lucky to like, you know, because I was sort of the case with us as well, of like there were things that probably wouldn't translate to the table, and then we were allowed to do it on our own and sort of, you know, proof of concept, make, make these things. But I would say mine is that the cheat code is group, the group that I was in. It was three friends, and so we're a little insulated from failure in that, like we liked what we were making, and so we were even joking around with each other and like laughing about stuff, like even when it was maybe considered a failure, and like it didn't quite work, like it's not one person, like with a bullseye on the back of three. Yeah. And that's been the case with me working with, you know, John Solomon and Will 482, I've always been in sort of groups, like there's a movie that I'm trying to get off the ground right now, and it is just me, and it's fucking scary. It's like really, it's a different kind of, and that's, that's now something I'm very excited about, love just like, yeah, level of fear of like, you live and die by what you fucking wrote, and you know, Muggles was that for me? You know mine, I think there's also one like you are, the target's not uniquely on your back. I also think there's something about working with people who, you know, they don't have to explicitly say it every day, but like you know they're working with you because they believe in you and they trust you, and you trust their taste. And so sometimes you take a steam through them, and you know, I talked about this when I did a good hang, and you know, Amy, like almost like maybe cry talking about like how my early days of the show, like the fact that like her and shoemaker kind of like continued to believe that they had not made a terrible mistake hiring me, like I don't think I would have survived without that. So it does help. And then, and then cut to my interpretation of you as like head writer and like watching you like be able to go to sleep on a writing night and then wake up and bang out like two sketches that could like start the show. Like honestly, like we've talked about this when we were writing high-rod, but like your, your ability to like push through and like just write, it was like me and Andy like groggily waking up still and Lauren's office on the pair my lot and Seth just like putting, putting here's another, here's another scene, here's another like Fox this guy is fucking amazing. Like we're pieces of shit. Like you guys are always a little tired, so let's not forget you're always a little tired. But anyway, hopefully that was helpful. But I think the most important thing is it sounds like you love what you do and I cannot stress how important that is. I also thought that when she was saying it was a dance and music like like I'm like are you playing lonely island songs for me, whoa, that's inappropriate, but you know, okay. Oh, there was a good inappropriate, somebody was a show their kid cherry battle and then the kid really liked it and they were like, oh, I'm going to show another one. Oops. And so they were like correctly steering around the ones that are sort of explicitly dirty and they were like, oh, you know what, laser cats seems fine. And they forgot the first laser cat. You guys are both like, they're both asking Lindsey Lehigh and if they'll have sex with them. Yeah, that was a bummer. She said so that has now been the reason I said, you know, just so you know that also happened to me. I also forgot that joke. Yeah. Memento is one of those your comments that people are going to find funny later. Memento! All right, here you go. Yeah. This was nice Hillary. I just like this. I like when a couple connects over the pod. I just got from work today and told my husband I was super tired and asked if he knew why. So he said likely from winter soldiering and that is what she was trying to get him to say. Oh, yeah. That was, that was her joke and he beat her to it. Can I, can I go back to the, there was a person who was saying that they were listening to, oh, yeah, on headphones, like that was how they go to bed to us talking and I would like to say, you know, cuddle with each other. Don't do that. Just fucking hold each other and turn us off. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, that's good. Thanks. Um, Michael was the one who now has to talk to their seven-year-old about sex because of laser cats. Michael started his email with maybe my favorite opening. Okay. Uh, longtime goose first-time gong. It makes me like human so much. It really makes me like humans too. Yeah. It's like fun. It's fun. Look, there's a lot of things this podcast isn't doing, but, you know, I will say a year ago, nobody would have written the sentence longtime goose first-time gong. But, do you have, like, I feel like what SNL also gave me was like, there's so many moments at SNL where you're like, well, that sentence has never been said to the best. On-earth. Like, it's, yeah. The best. Um, it was very funny, too, because, you know, Mike Shoemaker, who we obviously talk about a lot on the pod is a loyal listener to this. And he was saying he missed, he goes just by accident. He missed one episode. He goes, if you missed one episode, you have no idea what's going on. He goes, there was something you guys kept saying last episode, and I was like, what is this? And I was like, was it too burrito brain to winter soldier? He's like, yeah, that was what it was. And again, like, Shoemaker is as comedy-coded as any brain has ever been. And even he was like, it's impenetrable. Okay. Here's the thing to bring it back to comedy in general. This is a little bit like what it's like to be in a writers room where you're like jokes just get piggybacked on until they no longer resemble anything fucking normal. Or, yeah, so this is, this is what it is. Yeah, we got another voice note. Yeah. Fucking killer. I love these voice notes. Hey, guys, it's Cameron from the Pacific Northwest. Two questions. One, there's a video where Brian Tucker wraps about fucking each of you and pantomimes at what each of you are trying to work for, usually, you're an old guy. And YouTube is Tucker's song we uploaded. I don't remember if it was 2005 or 2006 when it first showed up online that it instantly became my all-time favorite YouTube clip. The line, ah, fucked up, a key of a shape for pops into my head. Multiple times a week. Well, these years later, and even after what must be hundreds of rewatches, the extra V and the text overlay of "Government" still makes me laugh out loud. Please talk about how this video came to be. Two, did you or me get that bisectomy in October? No. Or did the latter take care of it for them? Love you guys. Okay. First of all, one of the jokes that me and my wife did when I first fell off the latter and I was in the first trauma two center and they were realizing that they couldn't do the surgery because it was too difficult for them to do there and I had to go to trouble one. One of the jokes that me and my wife were doing was this doctor came in and she was, ah, man, what did he just say? I'm really fucking brain-dead, cute. Are you alright? Jesus Christ. Cut this all out. No, keep leaving it all in. No. Leave it all in. Do not. He did get a bisectomy with the doctor. He was upside down. So the doctor took out a part of his brain. That was okay. Okay. Yeah. We're getting this out. He cut his brain out. One of the jokes. One of the jokes that me and my wife were doing. There were two different jokes. One was about Jeremy Allen White and that's why I got confused. Yeah. It was that we kept like pitching that to people of like, can I still look like Jeremy Allen White? People did not understand it. Yeah. And then the other one was if they're going in there already, can I also get a bisectomy? Like just a two for you might as well do it. Right. People didn't like that joke either. Gotcha. One came about by Tucker coming into our office and just doing that. Just saying. Fuck. He was talking about that shit over and I went to work. Fuck that. I'm going in your mind. So we were just like, yeah, like it was probably either Monday or Tuesday but we were like, let's film that. Let's film that. Film that as a music video and we didn't. I think people should watch it because I always feel like, you know, the lore of Brian Tucker, you never think he's going to look the way he does. It's extra funny when you see like Brian and person like the whitest white man I've ever seen. I just said Keenan on my show last night and he was talking about because Keenan and Tucker, they also just wrote a kid's book. What is it called? What's that called? The unfunny bunny. But you know, they were, they were collaborators and Keenan said he goes, you know, one of the reasons I started working with Tucker is like, he, he knew how to like write and talk black. Like just from being a guy who like loved the culture like authentically and grew up around it. Because he also like, he just like does not exude that in any way again, he's like the whitest white man. I, I mean, this is like a, he's, he's not sure how to fucking front or no, he's no fronting. No, he loves, he loves, but he's like, he's pretty much like worked with and writes incredibly well for black comedians. Keenan included and also Dave Spell. Yeah. And he's just, yeah, he's a Nigma. Connor wrote in. Hello, my name is Connor. The girlfriend Lauren and I are huge fans of Andy Sandberg. Unfortunately soon, I will be going on a deployment and we'll miss our anniversary as well as her birthday. I was hoping you could send her something to make her feel special before leaving her favorite movie as hot rod. Connor, we reached out to Andy and it was a no moving on. It's a burn, it's a burn. Can I go back to the Tucker thing? Yeah, go back. Yeah. Great. It's our time. Yeah. Finally. Here. Uh, so speaking of Tucker, me and Bill Hader did this back in the day. This is early days. Again, like I'm shocked that we had room for more comedy in our lives that like went nowhere or had no purpose. And There was this website called Defamer back in the day that was like a gossip shit for celebrities. And I thought it'd be funny to have a website, a blog called Defamer about a guy who wants to become a firefighter, hence deflaming. And it was him moving to New York and it was just really depressing posts about him moving to New York. He's at recently divorced. And Brian Tucker was him. So I took a whole bunch of pictures with Brian Tucker because I just thought he was this like really a person you would truly feel sorry for. And he moves to like sort of not a great area of New York. And he's always trying to put a positive spin on it. But me and Bill still like worked out a lot of posts for this. And I don't know why we fucking did it. Like I think it was like when your job is comedy, you're like the idea of doing comedy just for you becomes more appealing. I don't know. Anyway. So we're just going to move on from the last one. You're not getting any perfume, like you know, anything from high red. That's very sad. Look, I mean, my Nandy's here. We'll run it back. But like I said, Connor, and I want to make sure I get your fiance's or girlfriend's name right. Hold on. I got a lot of stuff in front of me, Connor. Here you go. Connor. My girlfriend, Lauren. Oh, I said fiance, not yet. So maybe Connor, you know, while we're talking about what Andy's not getting you guys. Yeah. So Connor and Lauren, like I said, I reached out to Andy. And it was a hard no. Congratulations, guys. I love you guys. I don't know, but again, they actually don't have anything to be congratulated for. I misread it. Oh, he's going to the deployment. He will miss their anniversary, I think, of meeting and I will say, you know, look, I know they, Lauren's a huge fan of Andy Samberg, but as friends of Andy, I would just say happy birthday, Lauren. Stay safe, Connor. And most importantly, Andy had nothing to say to either of you. Fucking sweet, burn. Connor, help you get a challenge going over there. Somebody wrote, we were wondering if you guys would consider doing an episode or two around Kaplanmo, Stork Patrol, the boo. I mean, I feel like I'm, we've talked about it a little bit, but I think that would be a fun standalone episode. Yeah, we would, we would actually have a lot to talk about since we, you know, for many years, we did everything so low like and had, I think we probably talked about this, but like a microphone duct taped to a old broom handle as a boom, you know, like those are fun. That's a good old days. Um, do we have another voice? Don't Jeff? Yeah. Hey guys, long time quaid, um, so I have kind of a general SNL question. Y'all in previous pods have talked about how your sketchics can be in different locations in the studios and it has me wondering whether the update desk always stays where it is or if they take it off and bring it back on. Um, also, this is just a general thing. I've listened to so much of this podcast that now when I watch any SNL, even other episodes, y'all aren't there for, I can totally hear us just dryly describing sketches to me. Anyway, thanks for everything. Bye. Dryly. Dryly. Dryly describing. I love that you've, you've described my role. So well, um, it's a great question. They roll it in and out because that update area is the sweetest piece of real estate at S and L, known as home base. The desk would roll right in front of where the monologue is and a sweet spot. Why is it at home base? Yes. Why is updated home base? Yeah. Why? Because it plays out. So anything that plays out where you don't have to crosshoot anybody. So anytime it's a talk show sketch, you're going to be at home base. Home base is a nice place to be anytime. It's sort of like if you think about a commercial where it's mostly testimonials, those testimonials to be at home base. It's kind of though all and really one of the few places where you have a direct line of sight, uh, if you are in the audience and it does make sketches play better because people can actually like see what's going on whereas if it's off to the way left or right, you can't. Yes. I know. I know I'm repeating myself, but did Andy ever have a sketch that was at home base? Andy? Oh. Uh, yeah. Like which sketches were? I feel like we were always off to the side. Yeah, you guys wait. Yeah, you didn't write presentation stuff. Uh, no, no, no. Uh, Mark Wahlberg talks to animals. Oh, yeah. That would be an home base. Uh, and I know of tide. The back left corner of your facing home base, uh, was what Dratch called Shikhan Alley. Yeah. Shikhan Alley. So anytime anybody complained, anytime anybody complained, they'd be like, hmm, cowbell. Um, hey, Seth Lee and the islanders, keep you with the criterion theme. This is Mike. I wanted to share that hot rod actually makes it into my family's top five movies of all time. Before you get too excited, figured I should share what other movies make up the list and you can determine whether or not that's actually a good thing. Uh, oh. I thought that was very nice. Yeah, I'm sure. Hot rod. Secret life of Walter Mitty. Really? Fantastic, Mr. Fox. I agree with that. Wally. Yep. Only one I agree with is a fantastic, Mr. Fox. Yeah. But I would just say, uh, it's an eclectic family, you know what I mean? That is very eclectic. I have to assume that there are five of them and then they each have it and had a different pick. I've never seen a night's tale. I don't even know what that is. It's Heath Ledger, a night's tale. 2001. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I did like this. Another phrase coined only because the pod somebody asked a question and then said, hit me in the titty. You know, I'm just saying it's a play on hit hit us in the titty. Again, I'm just shuffling notes here. Amy was the one who said, I'd love to hear you talk about prep work for the Wednesday table read. It seems like scripts that are well performed have a better chance of being picked. So how much prep do performers do? How much coaching do writers do? Are cast members host ever surprised by the parts they read at the table or do all scripts come from a fully collaborative process and Tuesday nights? She is the one who said, if you have any insights, hit me in the titty. Oh. All right. So it's a great question. I think we hit on a little bit before, but like the reality is you don't have a ton of time. Everybody goes to the host and the host is sort of sitting in a room with a big stack of scripts and you sort of take your time to go in, but you don't have a lot of time because there's like 40 sketches and the host is already overwhelmed. So you can give them a little bit of guidance, but you can't like run through it with them. So I would always say, like, hey, you're playing like, you know, you're playing like a synopsis person on an airplane and just like kind of lean into it. And then different cast members required different levels of guidance. I would say like, Keenan, you just had to literally be like, you're in this. Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you forgot to tell Keenan, he was in this. He would still be reading along and probably give you just as good of a read as before. But there's no, I would say there's never any rehearsing. So oftentimes when it's read at the table, that is for sure the only time you as the writer have heard it run through with the cast. To add on to that a little bit is not being hyperbolic when he says there's like 40 sketches. There are almost exactly like 40 sketches, 38, 40, that's like the number that you read through. It's this massive stack of paper. It's so much for the host to get through. I'm sure they're nervous as a young writer because I'm sure Seth was more confident than I was. It was always a bit nerve-wracking to like go into the host and like try to give them, you know, a direction beforehand. I obviously got better at that over time, but it's like, you know, it's all sort of nerve-wracking and you're sleep deprived and everything and you're trying to like in as few amount of words because you don't want to bug them, like just give them direction. And then there have also been moments where I didn't do that assuming that it was all on the page and it would be a okay, anyone's going to get this, like they're going to read through them once before they get to the table read and it's going to be fine. And that is never the case, we should always give direction, yeah, yeah. I've also like a few times in the last 10 years have like say written something for a friend who comes back and hosts and I try to like via text, like tell new cast members like what to do because I'm on my floor instead of theirs and like I just think you just can't do it. And by the way, sometimes I think that it's you don't have a lot of time, but just like a little bit of eye contact, a little bit of like settling like, hey, like you know, you pick one line, you're like, this is the one line where you need to like say it. I think as a writer, you need to know which are the most important lines as opposed to like line for lining up with everybody. The interesting thing is if you write a song in a sketch, then you get a little bit of music rehearsal. So, you know, and again, this is a song that usually, you know, in our era, it was the great Catrice Barnes, Rest in Peace, and you would like go in and she had composed the music and any cast members who were singing a song knew that they would sort of be pulled into a room for the purposes of singing it through a couple of times, because that, you know, obviously reading a line from a sketch, there's a lot of different ways to do it, but when you're singing a song, you've never heard before, it's worth having a couple of dry ones. Two big up Catrice as well, like, you know, she did the unbox with us, she did every bit of music at the show with us in the early days, except for, you know, like one or two little things here and there. You could also rely on her in this way of like, you could just write out the lyrics, however you wanted to, and then she would be able to like, figure out the melody, and that oftentimes people who weren't musically inclined or whatever, like it made you a lazier writer, because she was so good at being able to like, just create, so I mean, you could give her any kind of like, era, any kind of like, you know, genre of music, and she'd be able to, I'll pronounce it the way I keep it. I don't know, it's genre, genre of music, but like, but she was incredible. And I would miss her. Yeah. Terrible. So, if you've sent an voice note, we did not even get to all of them. We didn't get to all your questions. We saved some because it felt like there was some value to Andy and Akiva hearing them. Save for Conor and Lauren. I do want you to know he did hear your message and it was just a hard no. At least I can turn this guy to the bottom. And I was. I was like, he's getting deployed, Andy. He's one of our nation's troops. Yeah. And Andy was like, I don't, I have no time for anyone. Troops or not. Right. Put that on the internet that I sell it. - Yeah. Anyway, by the way, this is just me honoring my dog, you know what I mean? I'm just like, he was shitty to Frisbee and I'm just fucking payback. Yeah, fuck that guy, yeah, totally. Björn and I hopefully get a good dinner in the next month. Woo! Dinner and a bisectomy! You know it is New York City, baby. You were a great Alvin today, buddy. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know what? You were very thoughtful with your answers. You were also a very good Simon. And what I really appreciate is you were barely a Theodore and sometimes you're too much of a Theodore. And so today, you were your real Simon Alvin and it was really great. And your Dave was like on fucking blast. I could David my eyes closed at this point. Yeah, I love you, buddy. I love you, Dave. And why don't you give us the finale? Take us out, Arnold. What did we say? You say later, Arnold. Oh, yeah, later on. Later quates.