Seth Meyers
01:15:52 Share

Yes, I have actually stayed at Airbnbs from time to time. And truth be told, I do really like them. I'm being totally honest right now that I've had great experiences with them. Yeah. I mean, you can have your look at you go get your own place, get your own pool, your own living room. You're not going to walk in an elevator. You're not going to see people when you're walking around in your undergarments. Yeah.

Yes. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, you should go online. What we're saying is you have a house with a kitchen and a bathroom and it's just for you, tailored for you. You liked your Airbnb over a hotel. Yes. And I do think I've had relatives stay nearby and sometimes it's very nice for them to do an Airbnb and have a little house and they're not underfoot. The last thing you want is your house guest to say, excuse me, um,

Where would I find a towel? That's a toughie when it's because they're naked. Well, it's like the 1800 time you say on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, hey, I'll go there. I'll get an Airbnb. So you won't regret it. David Zethmeyer. That's right. Good guy. Seth Meyers on the show this week.

Seth Meyers was a little after us. But I hosted when he was the head writer. That's right. And it was great to write with him. He's really sharp. He's just a very nice guy, very bright, articulate guy.

young man. He is very articulate and he seems like he has his act together. Worked with some really good people and had some funny stories about a lot of them and really good inside baseball about SNL and his own talk show. And he's done a comedy special or two. He's done a pretty well for himself, this kid. And if you look at his time on SNL, which we go over his timeline, he really bridged a lot of casts and he was

He was there during that. There was sort of, I think other people refer to it as the murderous row, but he was a really good guy to have around because he was around all those years, either writing for everybody, performing himself, or doing update. And he did it solo for many years as well. So he has a big SNL career. So this was a good guest for us and we know him. And I had fun reliving his story.

that I forgot about that when I hosted that we were in a sketch with Amy Poehler. - Did we talk about that with Seth? - Which one? - Maybe we talked about it with Amy.

But Seth was the director of that. He played the director. We were in a movie, me and Amy, and Seth is the fake director in the Sagetch. Anyway, I don't want to give it all away. Let's just let them hear it. I know. I said something that Greg won't be able to use, but it was on a Zoom for this thing up at the other house. And I said, yeah, I can do stuff from up here. You know, last week I did Amy Poehler in the barn. It just sounded sexual. That sounds good. Yeah.

You can cut that. Anyway. I don't think anyone believes that, but it's fine. It's funny. Okay, so here's Seth, guys, and we just had a nice time with him. Seth, non sequitur theater. So I did a gig in West Virginia.

Do you want a sound check? Well, I'll ask you in a second. Are you a sound check guy? No, no. Just make it sound really good. Jay Pharoah was there the night before. So I said, just give me Jay's sound. Okay, go. Off mic. Go out. And then just a huge slap back echo.

And I'm like, do I stop the show? But maybe it's the room. They can't. But that was so distracting because I would talk, but I couldn't really. And then it talks back to you? Garbled, yeah. So like an echo effect. Zeth Myers is our guest today. Do you think that Jay Pharoah likes a big slapback echo? Do you think that was on his...

Well, if you drop the echo and just go big slap back, I have no idea. No. I always do a sound check for this very reason. It's so rare that it's a problem. I mean, Nate Bergazzi, all these guys, I don't do it either. Really? Well, I will remember to ask, is there a slap back echo in this theater? It's a combination of laziness and unprofessionalism on my end.

but I just don't want to get there at three in the afternoon and go in and I'm like, hello? And they're like, okay. Yeah, I wouldn't do three. I would do, I try to show up earlier. If they say be there at 6.30, I'm like, what about six for a sound check? Yeah, I wouldn't. Now, what are you looking for? How meticulous are you? Like a little more bass? A little more bass? I have no taste at all about music or sound or lights. They asked me what for the lights. I 100% have your...

take on it, Dana, which is whatever the last guy had. But I just want to be there in case something. Right. And you want to be able to, because people are coming in in a casino and you want to be able to kind of see them and comment. Not brightly lit, but just a little light. Yeah. Anyway, but... No, no, don't move on to these, Seth. I think I learned a lot from what you do before a stand-up show. So I'm happy to talk about this. It's so riveting to the audience. So when I get on... They love this stuff. Here's another problem, Seth. You get on...

and there's like a fucking wind turbine on your side of your face. I go, was Beyonce here last? Because I don't want my hair blowing to the side and now I have cotton mouth. And I go, hey, can we turn off AC unit 104? And then no one, everyone already checked out. Once you're on stage, they all leave and go to smoke. Everyone on the crew. Okay, stand up story question.

Have you ever mistakenly been chewing gum right before you go out and then you realize that you have bit your tongue or the side of your mouth and you are bleeding? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. And your mouth is bleeding. Anyone ever had that? No, I've never had that. Seth, how many stand up dates? I mean, are you have you been consistently doing stand up these last 20 years?

Or on and off. Yeah, on and off. I did my special. I taped pretty much right before the pandemic. So then it was good. It was good timing that I didn't have an act for the 18 months that nobody could do an act. And then I've sort of started after.

Your name pops up in my world sometimes. Like if I was, that was here last week for the corporate data. Seth couldn't make it. Will you do it? Yeah. Yeah. I hear a lot that you, because again, especially corporate things, Dana, you hear about people who bomb. And I always hear that you have done very well. When I ask who did it last year, I like to always, don't you always go, how'd they do? How'd they do? First of all, they're very difficult. James Austin Johnson, uh,

the Trump extraordinary impression. He called me recently 'cause he was doing some for the first time. He was like, "Well, how do you do these? "'Cause you're just playing to silence "and they're having a steak dinner."

So what I do is I go online, I check the corporation and then I give a fake speech as if I'm knowledgeable about their economic data. And I think we can see growth in the third quarter. I just do a lot of tricks, but they love it. They love it. They love a few. What about you, Seth? I went in New York. I think Lauren asked if.

uh bill hater and i would do it together he and so bill was stefan and i was me and we did this charity event and afterwards bill said oh my god we bombed and i was lucky enough to know oh no that was great for a charity event we just crushed for this yes yes i always come off even if i bomb i always go wow that was a great audience i had a great time even if i'm dead silent you can hit everyone looks they kind of go looks around he thought it was good

He doesn't know? I do like to do a meet and greet, but I have to. I like doing it after the show because even if you thought it was rough, they will often say, that was so much better than what we usually have. Right. Oh, yeah. We had this guy named not to be mentioned, and it was awful. Seth, here's another trick, and then we're going to talk about, I don't even know what, but when I get off, they go, you contractually have to do 50, let's say, or an hour. Yeah.

And you go, fine. And then it's bombing so badly, you get off at 51. I'm supposed to do an hour. The first thing I say is, did I go too long?

And they go, oh, no, actually. I go, oh, my God, thank God. I thought it was like an hour and a half. They're like, no, no, it was actually, it was a little short. Oh, thank you. Okay, good. And they're like, wait. Because they don't have to pay you. Well, sometimes they get excited and they want your entrance to be. And I go, that only buys me 10 seconds. This is amazing. So it's a car show. They got me a go-kart. And I'm supposed to go through the audience. I go, it's not. And the music is like Metallica. And I'm in the car. Whoa.

And then the music comes down. I step out of the car and it's the biggest womp, womp. Now what? Do you come on to music, Zeth? Ladies and gentlemen, do you come out, just walk out? I usually walk in. They usually play. And again, I just have no taste for this. They'll sometimes just play like five seconds of the opening credits for late night. I will say, and if any corporate planners are listening, nobody at a corporate event wants more than 45 minutes.

And I know they want their money's worth and they think, give us an hour. Nobody at a corporate event. Oftentimes we're going on. And the next thing is they all get to have dinner and drinks together and talk to their colleagues. And it doesn't matter how red hot the comedian is. An hour is too long at a corporate. I've had in the early days, they'd say 70 and a 10 minute meet and greet. And then it got down to some of them were 30 to 45 and like a half hour meet and greet.

It became more about me being a museum piece at this point in my existence on the planet. So they want to get the picture with the guy from the early, late 70s. You're right, Seth. It's hard to say you're paying a lot. I'm telling you. Yes. Even 30 is a lot, but do 45. Not 70. The last 15 will be horrifying, but you'll do it. And all they want to do is, you're right, if they have something after or they just want to talk, they're drinking. And if you're a surprise and they're like,

At the end of your eight hour meeting, we have an extra hour tacked on of someone you, and they're like, I heard it was Gwen Stefani. And I walk out and they go, what the fuck? And then they go, oh, okay. And then I do it. And they're like, they all rush to the bar. And it is true. You're right. Because you want to say like, I'm not, I'm not saying this because I'm lazy. It's only, it's out of my day. I can do it. I'm just doing it for you and your people. Yes. Yes.

They get up at six. The open bar is at five. You see me at 10. That's, you know, anyway, we don't have a real question for Seth. Let's start the program. Ladies and gentlemen, aside from what Seth, I have to say looks great. And I, whatever you're doing on zoom, I need to do it. I need to helicopter your team out. He looks tan. He's clear. I can hear him.

I look like fuck pie. I don't know. I shouldn't even be on this zoom. I, you gotta have the camera up. We're going to talk later, but, but, but Seth has a little bit of scruff. Yeah. Let me ask you a question. So you've just been for someone who's been working nonstop for 20 years at an extremely high level. So the strike hits, uh,

Yeah. Was this your longest break? I mean, you had pandemic breaks, but then there were Zoom stuff, but this was probably your longest break in like 20 years or something? Yeah, definitely, because the pandemic, we immediately went back to doing the show. So I was alone, but I was working. Yeah. Oh. And so this was the only thing that was close was the last strike, which was 100 days. And this was, you know, 100, almost 150. So this was nuts. The difference between this time and last time is I have three kids, so it didn't really feel like...

a break. I would say that my time was used very well. And I did try to get out and do shows because I liked being in front of an audience, but it was a very, very strange long break from being also my, the entirety of my career is, has taken place in 30 rocks. So it was weird to not be in this building.

How long do you do not? This is a good one. How long do you not tell? How long do you not tell your wife and kids there's a strike so you can just leave at a certain time in the day and just go to wherever you want? And then they finally go, wait, you're not even going to work anymore. You go.

I think I could have made it a full month before. Because certainly none of them watch the show. So it wouldn't have been that. That's great. Yeah. Are you amazed? Because I assume it's accelerated. I don't know what your childhood was like, but just how...

integrated the parent is with the child in modern parenting. I think it's just systemic and it's just environmental. But yeah, it's not like your dad or my dad, there were five kids and we barely saw them. Do your yard work and get the hell out, that kind of stuff. Everyone knows that. But when you're home with

three kids are they because you have three are they have an ecosystem of entertaining themselves they're just still a little young but the two boys so it's seven five and two and so the two oh two yeah yeah they're they're kind of uh entertaining themselves a little bit the it was both good and bad that the strike fell during the summer because it was good because

You know, obviously that's a better time to not be going to an office. And it was bad because they just didn't have school. So they were just around the whole time. And that's why I started multiple podcasts, just to have a reason to tell them to be quiet. Daddy's working. Oh, right. Now you have your podcast. You have one solo and then you have the five tenors. Yeah. So I do. I do one with my brother called Family Trips to the Myers Brothers. And yeah, then Strike Force 5, which will be wrapping up.

The strike basically ended because people collectively decided they didn't want our podcast to keep going. Who thought of the name? Because it's pithy. I don't know what you would call it. Strike Force 5. I mean, it is. I'm going to guess. John Oliver. No, it was Colbert. I think it was Colbert. And it was originally just the name of our text chain that we started in the run up to the strike because we did want to make sure we were all on the same page.

that it was likely to happen. And so that was the name of the text, Jane. And then Kimmel had the idea for the podcast and we realized that it was, we already had a very good name. And you're the only 1230 in the bunch, right? I'm the only 1230 in the bunch. And also, thank you for saying 1230 when in reality now, I think it's 1237, which is even more embarrassing to say. When you tell somebody you're on a show that starts at 1237, it sounds like... Why does that happen for the regular viewer? I think it's about the affiliate

and station breaks and stuff and the local news and all really thrilling things. But yeah, it's all gotten pushed back a little bit. I mean, when I'm watching your stuff on YouTube and you have these gigantic

amount of hits and stuff. It seems like, I mean, obviously it's looser at 1230. It seems, if all things being equal, it seems better to be doing your show at that time, as far as more fun. I don't know the financial part of it, but it does seem just loose that one hour later, you just got freedom, right? Well, yeah, I think it also helps that you're on after, and I don't think that

Jimmy Fallon's not having fun. I think he's having a lot of fun too, but I think the network's paying a great deal more attention to his show than our show. And so that just gives you the freedom to do what you want, especially after, you know,

The covid break where we didn't have an audience, we were just doing a show for almost 18 minutes without a live audience. And we kind of kept using those instincts as we got the audience back. And so the show has been very loose and very fun to do. It's one of the reasons I, you know, didn't go back to wearing a suit is it just seemed like, oh, you know, I'm going to let people know when they tune in that we're we have a little bit.

more of a laid back vibe about what we're trying to get done here. You're the Fetterman of the strike. I was the first guy there. I was the first guy. Although Fetterman makes me look like I'm in a tuxedo. So the, uh,

The stress of being the head writer at SNL and all that, and then when they approached you, if you have a Lorne, to do this show, you're the host, and is it four nights a week? Yeah. Is it easier or harder, or you're still figuring out how, compared to being the head writer at SNL and then being in a lot of sketches? I will say this...

Was very hard when it started, but it's easier now because unlike SNL where each week a different host comes in and completely changes the

DNA of the week. We now, every week we're trying to make our show and everybody here is sort of rowing in the same direction. Whereas the thing about SNL and especially being the head writer is it just never got easier. I think you maybe got a little bit better at it, but the headaches that would come up on any given week, you just couldn't get out in front of them. There was never a way to

You know, make it foolproof. It's almost impossible that it gets it stays as hard as it does, but it does. Yeah. And and you're also you feel like you're in service to an institution and you don't want to sort of besmirch its legacy. And you're working for Lauren, you know, having to see Lauren every day is just in general harder than not having to see Lauren every day.

Because he can't be everywhere giving notes to everything. Yes. I mean, we're in a very nice position where, I mean, I think also, you know, you guys have spoken of Shoemaker, you know, with me and Shoemaker working on the show, like we're two people that Lawrence sort of turned to a lot in our tenure at SNL. And so I think he has a lot of confidence in us. And so we don't have to, he doesn't feel the need to check in with us on a day-to-day level. Yeah.

And you know how he thinks. Yes. Slowly. And how he talks. Yes. Like when you're, when I was there and you're the head writer, I just noticed just, and I met with Jim Downey too, but you were just in, involved in every sketch basically and overriding and doing, and just a funny little anecdote from me.

When I was hosting earlier, I don't know, it was 98 or 2000. Tina was assigned to do church chat with me because Lauren will do church chat. You know, he just tells you. All right. And then she would do the church lady when we were in the office writing. And then 10 years later, I'm doing it. You're going to help me with it. And then you would do a church lady impression when you were writing jokes as a church lady.

And I don't want to say who did it better. You're both great, but that was, you had a very good ear for the lady. Let's put it that way. It was a real, I mean, there are many surreal things that happen in your time at that show, especially if you're someone who grew up watching the show, but that is very high on the list. Spending that week with you where, you know, not only do we get to work on a church chat, but also a Wayne's World. That was a real, that was a real trip where I was definitely pinching myself the whole time.

Toyota's national sales event is happening now, meaning it's a great time for a great deal on a dependable Toyota truck like the Tundra. Workhorse by nature, powerhouse by design combines raw capability with premium comfort and advanced tech to fuel your wildest adventures.

With the available i-Force Max hybrid powertrain, you can take electrifying horsepower farther than ever before. Or check out the fully designed Tacoma, delivering trail-dominating power and captivating style. The new Tacoma was born to make your off-roading dreams come true. And with new available tech, this legendary truck is getting even better.

Visit buyatoyota.com, the official website for deals. All new Toyotas come with ToyotaCare, a no-cost maintenance plan. See your dealer or visit buyatoyota.com for details. Let's go places.

When you went back to host, did they have things they want you to do? Well, I had a very different time at the show than you, Dana. Well, you had your update segments and all that stuff. Yeah, that's about all I had. I felt, I will say, I have no proof except for how late they asked me. I do get the sense that someone dropped out. Fallout boy. Yeah, and then, you know, because I was like, usually I feel like we knew the host before the Sunday night. Yeah.

- And before, can you run over here and be in 30 sketches? - And I, you know, I was doing this show. We had to cancel a week of the show, which was no big deal. And I was very excited to host. I'd been gone, I only think about three years, but there was literally nothing I did that anybody wanted to see me do again, other than update. And, you know, I did start as a cast member and sort of worked my way into being a writer.

and the guy on Updates. So they had already tried me and sketches, and it had been a failed experiment. You went backwards. I felt for the writing staff the week I came in who had to figure out a thing that had already been tried and not figured out. I had a wonderful...

Did you just do an hour-long update? Sorry, go ahead. He came in to host and he just did an hour of update. You'll do update. Good night. You came in as a feature or a full-fledged cast member? No, I was a feature. I started with...

Amy Poehler, and then Dean Edwards and Jeff Richards were in my class. And we were a homel. Yeah, we were featured. I was featured for two years. And I had a real, either first or second summer, I had one of those, like, they're not picking you up yet. You know, one of those long summers. Oh, yeah. I know that tune. Where they basically, I mean, they are saying, they haven't decided on you yet. What they're going to do is look at every other funny person. And go, man, that's it.

They're doing a tour of Second City, the improv. Yeah. As long as they don't find one person they like more, you're good. And when did you accelerate? When did you take over the show, essentially? I will... I mean, I definitely benefited from Tina's departure, but I sort of... I would say really sort of gutted through the first five and a half, six years on the show. But when Tina left... And again, I was...

You know, I wasn't at the rewrite table. I was just a cast member. And then Lauren called me in and asked me if I wanted to be a writing supervisor for Tina's last year. And that was, I mean, that's sort of like a right underneath the head writer. So, but I ran a table. I was one of the people who ran the table.

Oh, okay. And that was the first time I felt like I had added any value to the show that they couldn't go find elsewhere. The thing for me, and again, I'm not being hard on myself, but when I...

I wrote a lot of things for group sketches where other people would be in them. And the longer I was there, the more really funny people showed up like Hader, Sandberg, Sudeikis, Forte, Fred. And they were this kind of guy. Every one of them could do my best move better than me. And so as a writer, I would rather put Bill Hader in my sketch than me. And so if I felt that way, I certainly knew the rest of the writing staff felt that way.

So that was why it was very nice for me to find my way into head writer. And then, of course, update longest running update until Colin took over. Yeah. Yeah. Blew me out of the water. These two. So you were there 12 years, 13 years. Yeah. And SNL. Yeah. Twelve and a half years. The first five tough. And then you became head writer and then update guy extraordinaire. Yeah.

Well, I felt very I felt at home then in a way that I if late night hadn't popped up, I didn't have really an exit strategy. I was very in a way that probably wasn't good. I became content at SNL.

Does Lorne have all, what does he have there? He has your studio, which is called what, Nine or something? We're 8G. 8G. He has 8H. It's got to be some expensive real estate there. Does he have anything else? Was that Conan's? Fallon's downstairs. He's 6. Oh, right. Is that right? He is? Yeah. I was in 6A in 1981. Oh, doing your show? Sitcom with Mickey Rooney and Nathan Lane, one of the boys. All right. And I was in 6A.

In Rockefeller Center for six months. What a bummer there's no sitcoms in 30 Rock anymore. That would be such a fun thing to have. Was 30 Rock the sitcom in 30 Rock? No. 30 Rock was at a... Silver Cup? Yeah, that's right. Oh!

Is that in Queens? Yep. We own a piece of that, David. If you're from Queens, I'm from normal parents. It's from someone's act. That was crowd work when I was doing standup. So when you, I could ask you a lot of different questions. One is how did day drinking come about? I mean, cause that is,

That is unbelievably entertaining. Not your day drinking, but the sketch. Day drinking the segment where Zeth goes with celebrities and they get kind of drunk. It's incredibly entertaining. It's like to watch. Yeah, it is, you know, it...

The interesting thing is I think having the late night show and, you know, having watched a lot of Conan, certainly when I was in college and the man on the street stuff that Conan did, I aspired to do that as well. And I had so much anxiety being in public doing the show and that lack of control and

and knowing you had to sort of find it as opposed to have it planned ahead of time. It's all edited, yeah. You gotta shoot eight hours to get like one segment. Yes, and you have to talk to, and for every funny person you find, what the audience doesn't see is the eight weirdos where it was sort of aggressive or strange or just dry.

And with day drinking, I sort of drink away my anxiety about it, like anybody with sort of a social anxiety. And it becomes a lot more fun and we actually don't have to cut it down as much as you'd think. But the first time I did it was with my brother and we just thought it would be a fun thing to do because I like doing stuff with my brother. And it was Retta, the wonderful actress, comedian said, "Oh, I want to do that." And we never thought it'd be a thing we would do with guests, but because Retta did it and it was so much fun,

we kind of got more people signed on and now, well, you know, people ask all the time to do it and we have to be a little bit, we try to be a little, what's the word? Cautious with how often we do it because it is, I am drinking an amount that as I get older, I probably should not do often. How do you keep up with some of these guys? There's a couple of guys I won't say who, but I'm sure they could drink you under the table. No, no. The only person, the only person who I think is,

left me in the dust was Rihanna because at the end of that, she definitely was going out. Like that was like the beginning of her night and it was most assuredly the end of mine. - So nobody's driving 'cause it's New York. So there's no- - It's New York. So everybody's safe and sound. Yeah, it's good. - That's a weird bit that I can't believe people do. And it's a great idea. - What's that hot sauce one on YouTube? You do hot sauce. - Hot ones. Have you guys done hot ones?

I will not do hot ones. That's a compelling. I did hot ones. I think it's wonderful. I think that guy's a really good interviewer. And I think the hotter the wings get, the less you're capable of editing your own answers. So it's very, it's very smart. Cause you're in pain. And so the anxiety is supplanted with, with agony. Genuine pain. Oh yeah. I don't, I, it's funny cause most of my interviews, I just want to like,

Like, have a nice time. You're very... You're an outlier. I'm so weird. Oh, you know, I saw Dana. I'll tell Seth, you'll like this. I did a show at Town Hall the other night. When this airs in 2026. Right. We'll just say... But I did Town Hall. It was great. And who comes back? Kenny Amon. Did he really? Yeah. Isn't that great? Prince of the City. He was in the audience. I...

I think I was talking about something we talked about in the show. We mentioned him a lot and then I emailed him and then he said, I heard you're coming to town, David. And I said, yeah, I'd love to come with the wife. So I got him in half price, took care of him. And, uh,

He came in, then he came back after. He was hesitant too. He said, he didn't want to bother me. And then he came back. He's exactly Kenny Among. Super fun. We talked about that Sinead O'Connor thing that I said. I said, how much of what I say on the show is a lie? What do you think? What's the percentage? And he said, you got this. Sinead O'Connor went a little wrong. And I go, oh, he still has the picture.

Yeah, now I will admit, David, when I heard you tell that on your show, I knew you were a little wrong because Kenny had told me that story so many times. I'm telling you, I, you know, you remember something back, whatever. It wasn't that far off, so we talked about it. So there was, she did rip up the picture. That part was true. I saw that. And then I walked out. I picked up a piece. That's true.

I kept it. He never got it back from me is one problem he said. He said he brought me in and said, I heard you have a piece. And I said, yes, because I was bragging to the office. And then he said, we're going to need it back. And I guess I didn't give it back. And then he, there was a legal problem. He tried to get it back from a current affair and then he got it. And then he said, then he kept it. He had it for Joe Pesci monologue. I guess they still didn't have my piece. I don't know what I was thinking. I was terrified of my job. Why? Why in God's green earth did I not bring it back in?

And he said it wasn't a very important piece. It was a lot of like white and I go, okay, relax. It's important. It was a good, solid piece. And then he has it now. And Lorne asked him for it and he said no. Yeah, Lorne asked him for it for that touring sort of SNL museum exhibit they were doing. And good old Kenny shot him down. And I will say, you know, Who shots Lorne down? But that's the thing. And by the way, Kenny got, you know, Kenny had to bear the brunt of Lorne's whimsy

for the entire run he was at the show. The amount of time I sat there when we would do picks on Wednesday night and Lorne wouldn't be able to choose between two. And he'd look at Kenny and say, can we do both? And Kenny would be like, we don't have the space, Lorne. We physically don't have the space. And Lorne's like,

You'll figure it out. And just like poor Kenny would have to like go. Of course. He did seem anxious. I mean, such a nice guy, but he did seem, his eyes were wide open and he was on the move during show week. You could tell that he was trying to figure out. He was the guy getting everything done. He was the guy getting everything done. But I will say, cause he did look like, he's the way you wanted a guy in a control room for a live TV show to look. Arms crossed, you know, just worry lines. Focus.

But when a show was over and Kenny took you aside and told you he loved a sketch you'd done, that meant more than almost anybody. Because you realize that for it to actually break through his wall of anxiety and bring him any joy, it had to be a genuinely funny piece of comedy. And he's seen 2,000 million shows. What was the hardest thing you ever felt that you landed there?

Would it be a certain update piece or a sketch or? I wrote the Amy Tina Palin Clinton sketch and that's the hardest anything played in the room, you know, and that was great because I didn't have any performance anxiety about it. I had sort of written this thing that was then in the hands of these two incredible performers. So that is one of the few times in my run at the show where I just sort of stood on the floor and.

knowing that it would go great and just got to sort of bask in that reaction. The other thing about it, because it was just an in one, you know, I think sometimes when you write something on the show, your fear after it plays great address, isn't that the actors will get it wrong, but maybe Lauren made you cut something. You're just worried about the shot being late because again, it's not the director's fault, but they're calling these shots so fast and it's,

I was always so frustrated when a sketch went great at dress, if anybody wanted to make a change because the audience was tough. You don't know what's going to happen or it's after following something and something for some reason it steps on some jokes and you're like, Oh my God, I never saw that. If you get something kills a dress and then it bought a line of yours in an ensemble piece. And then later on you find out that you didn't step into the light or it was turned away. So the camera wasn't on you. Yeah. And you realize later, well, it wasn't my fault.

You know, yeah, that's the torture of us now. But when it works like did you sit with Tina? Did you know she had a really great impression and rhythm and also sort of a look alike element? Did you sit with her a little bit and then write the sketch or you just assumed she would?

I think that was the first one. And in the subsequent ones, we worked on them more together, but she was doing 30 Rock at the time. So there wasn't a lot of free time in her schedule. I think people forget that she wasn't a full cast member at the time. She was actually juggling those two things. And then once it became what it became, I mean, again, I think we only did six, but I think we did six in sort of a nine week period. She and I both had this fear that they would get worse.

And and somebody would say they were getting worse. So we kind of redoubled our efforts to keep it good. And that was where, you know, not just Tina as a performer, but having Tina as a writer on those was was invaluable. I I can see Russia from my house. But now I got to own it up. You know who wrote that line?

Lauren? Shoemaker. Oh, Shoemaker, really? Oh, that's a great prop to give Shoemaker. Shoemaker, it was heartbreaking because it was Saturday morning and we're all at the update table where we're sort of picking the jokes. So we would get in, I think, at 11.30 on Saturday morning and start going through the update jokes. And I had the sketch out and was just going through it one last time and sort of asking...

the room for jokes. And Shoemaker said, I could see Russia from my house. And it was just, you immediately knew, oh, that's the best line and that'll be the one that gets quoted forever. Oh, God damn. What a short, concise. Oh, good for him. Memorable. It's perfect, perfect comedy writing.

The thing about political impressions is that the audience still is coming on to the person. So like Sarah Palin walked out the Republican convention, first time everyone saw her. I don't know how soon after you guys did that, but it seemed like as the season went on,

she kept doing meet the press or whatever she was doing. And so the audience was getting more and more familiar. So probably they, if I remember them all landing really hard, at least that's of the pay. Palin was like Ross Perot. I always say to people fully form comic character, uh,

just coming right out of the box. You didn't have to go and not got to do it or try to find a way to make it funny. Yeah. And so that it was, it's great when great writing meets a great performance. And then the, the, the moment for Sarah Palin on Saturday night live, it's like a peak moment on the history of SNL. I think. Very true. Yeah. And then there are other times where it's, it's me playing John Kerry where none of those things happen. There was no, no,

There was no way. I mean, John Kerry, just that, you know. There's not that much there. Tough to get a hook.

Yeah. I had a line. He looked like the tree from the Wizard of Oz. So I would just do that and say, that's John Kerry. Are you saying my apples don't, you know, that you just make up something. But no, he was. Which is good, which is like, that's a very good, like stand up approach. But with this, when you have to do a guy for six sketches, it just you run out of mood. I mean, you start with no moves and you run out. And it's funny because I remember during the Palin year, there was a lot of.

press around SNL and I would do interviews and people would say, it just seems like every election year SNL comes alive. And I would say, not every.

Not every year. You start with nothing and it runs out from there. Also, you know, George W. Bush was funny. And Will was Will there in 2004 still or someone else took it over? Will? No, Will was gone. So it was Will Forte was doing. But that was a funny. And so he and I could find no purchase at that point. That was I mean, I think six, five people did Bush after Bush.

And again, you're following a guy who, because his Bush was almost as much feral as Bush, right? Yeah, because once somebody identifies the hooks, then yeah, it's hard to stay away. And election Bush was sort of a more...

likable Bush before you're doing, you know, Iraq, you know, Iraq war Bush, which is then like people don't like them and they also miss Will Ferrell. There was a lot stacked up against you when you were trying to do it. And then you come in with Carrie. Did anybody, Jim, John Downey give you any kind of catchphrase? Downey was helpful. And I mean, Downey and John Carrie. I mean, I don't have a clue how to do that. Daryl Hammond was also would come and try to help.

but it wasn't, you know, that's like, it's a weird, like, like Daryl Hammond trying to help somebody like me with an impression and be like, LeBron James trying to teach me how to dunk. Like you dunk like this. Yeah. I don't, I don't have any of those parts. Yeah. Well, wait a minute. You're Hugh Grant. Passable. Also, you have a passing resemblance to Hugh Grant. Well, that's what helps. No, but you had, you,

I know. Well, it's a podcast. You can do it or not, but I think you have one of the best ones. No, no, no. Frankly, frankly, sorry. That was it. That was just a guy. But I did audition with it. I did audition with Hugh Grant, so I have a special place in my heart. You just do that much and you get applause. That was in and out. People don't know that you get a sign like, there's Spade, you're going to be this and this, and then you've got like an hour before we do. But...

It doesn't mean you're doing a good impression. It means you're going to rely on hair, makeup, and an outfit, and then get something close and just get through a sketch.

Robert Half Research indicates 9 out of 10 hiring managers are having difficulty hiring. If you have open roles, chances are you're feeling this too. That's why you need Robert Half. Our specialized recruiting professionals engage their skills with our award-winning AI to connect businesses of all sizes with highly skilled talent in finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal and administrative, and customer support.

At Robert Half, we know talent. Visit roberthalf.com today. You know, Dana, I think we have a connection. We've been friends for a long time. And for this episode of Fly on the Wall, we've partnered with eHarmony, which isn't us. eHarmony is a dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. We are not dating. I want to clarify that. But the connection is what you want in a dating partner. Yeah.

Just someone like, if you found someone that listened to this podcast, that's somewhat of a connection. And then you sort of build on that. You want someone with some common ground. Yeah. It's not, it, look, if you want to connect romantically over, you know, super fly or fly on the wall, uh,

It just makes us happy. You don't want to be watching The Godfather and the person next to you goes, this movie sucks. So dumb. Yeah. You want to connect on all issues and harmonize in life. Similar sensibility, similar sense of humor, and similar sense of sense. I don't like when they watch The Godfather and they're like, everyone in this movie is so old. I'm like, they're 40.

Watch 2001 Space Odyssey. Too much of this movie is in outer space. I don't like it. When do they land? When do they land? Why is that stupid red light acting so silly? Who's friends with a robot? We know dating isn't easy. That's why we partnered with eHarmony because dating is different on eHarmony. They want you to find someone who gets you, someone you can be comfortable with.

Yeah. I mean, the whole idea is you're going to take a compatibility quiz, helps your personality come out in your profile, which makes all the profiles on eHarmony way more interesting and fun to read. So I think this is the goal of dating sites, and I think eHarmony does it great. It's just finding somebody you're compatible with.

So get started today with a compatibility quiz. So you can find some and you can be yourself with. Get Who Gets You on eHarmony. Sign up today. Whose idea was Dylan and Tom Petty for you guys?

Was that you? I did Tom Petty when I was in the act. I did Dylan at Update. He'd done a concert. He had the hat. I think Bonnie Turner might have and Terry may have suggested that, I think. Probably because they knew I did Petty. I can't believe someone remembers it. It was a very memorable... It sort of seared in my mind the cut to the two-shot of you because you had such that... Your facial position for Tom Petty was so...

funny spade. Which he doesn't in his stand up. So he owned that. He was already growing with that look. Sounds weird. He sounds like Dylan, a funny two shot just to look. The look again, that's a classic example. A look is funny. Well, they were, it was also the sort of, it was apex petty look, right? Those like little glasses. A lot of hat work was going on for both guys. So I had. I took that hat from the guy who worked the valet at the Marriott Marquis in downtown. And it was a

I had that half forever. Dylan was easy to do a hacky Dylan, but you know, I don't, have you listened to Dylan lately on his albums and stuff, which I love old Dylan, but it's very different. It's soon after midnight. I have a date with the fair queen, you know, but then it was just, Hey, you know, all that 60 stuff. I'm not my best moment, but thanks for bringing it up. Seth.

Do you know, have you seen that photo that floats around the internet every year that posts a photo of the traveling Wilburys and how old they were when they were in the traveling Wilburys? No, how old were they? And it's heartbreaking how, like just so young. I think Roy Orbison was the oldest and he was maybe like 42. 42. I know. They say that Golden Girls were all 26. That's true. That's true. A lot of hair and makeup working there. Carol O'Connor, when he did All in the Family, was 15. That's true.

He looked like shit. There were two other guys. There were two other guys in his suit. It is funny. When Sinatra said I did it my way, he was 27. Yeah, see? A little early, Frank, okay? Live a little more life before you go down that road. Everyone's living longer and everyone's getting, it's not so terrifying anymore.

to be, I guess, I mean, you always think you look like shit and then 10 years later, you're like, oh, I looked great back then. Yeah. It's tough. You just know, however bad you look now, it's going to be great in 10 years. Yeah, we're stacked like a decade apart without putting numbers down. So it is kind of funny if they can see this. I'm suing Zoom, by the way. It's 10 years later and then it's 10 years later and then we go to, but I look to Keith Richards, you know, quit smoking at 80 and he feels great. Um,

You know, a lot of my heroes, like heroes, whatever, you know, Jack Nicholson, Redford, all these people, Jane Fonda are in their mid 80s now. It's the weirdest. I mean, of those guys you just said, it is. Jane Fonda looks outstanding. Yes.

And I do want to give a shout out to how well that person has aged. Just exceptional. And as a performer, Frankie Ann, great. So really, she's wonderful. I just did something with Christy Brinkley, and unsurprisingly, she's stunning. Yeah. 69. Don't people want to, instead of, would you rather someone say, oh, he's looking really good for his age, or he's hot? Would you like to be called hot?

still, David? Oh, Spade, he's hot. But from a woman. I never got that ever, so yeah, I'll take fucking any scraps you got. How would you like to be described, Seth? Seth is madly what he wants. I have reached the age, and this is not, this has not come from a place of self-doubt, but I have reached the age where if someone said I was hot, I would think something is wrong with them. Ha ha ha!

You know what I mean? Whereas good, you look good for your age. I could take as a sort of value judgment that I can put in my pocket and feel good about, but you look hot. I think what most people do is compare themselves to the stepdad on stepdad porn and just see how you look, you know, compared to looks wise, not wiener wise.

Anyway, we're going to look at a clip. Stepdad porn. I knew I just won $1,000. That was going to be mentioned during this podcast. Thank you. I was getting into it going, I got to, I don't, I'm, shouldn't I do that? I just shouldn't do that. Also, I'm almost certain no one searches for it by that.

I would imagine you lean into stepdaughter when you're in the search bar, but that's neither here nor there. You know what? Mother-daughter porn is not mother-daughter, I mean, in a perfect world, but it's actually just actresses. They have an ingenue and a grizzled vet.

Anyway, that took a click. By the way, who else in that grizzled vet? Probably younger than Roy Orbison. Exactly. Grizzled vet in porn is like 36. They're like, I've done three million films. Did you guys ever do a porn related sketch? Because Nealon and I did one. Ridiculous. I think it bombed. A porn related sketch on SNL.

Oh, man. There were definitely some in my time. I'm trying to think if I worked on any of them, but I don't think so. Neil and I were like in barber chairs with our shirts off and we were porn stars and people were working on manscaping or curating our...

And it was like, yeah, put a little fence down there, make it nice for the people, fluff it up. It was all this abstract. That's all we had. It bombed here and it bombed then. Um, the one that was great, uh, in my era that I had nothing to do with was, uh, Vanessa Bayer and Cecily Strong were former porn stars who would do commercials for like Swarovski, uh, Swarovski crystals. Yeah. And it was always, they would always pronounce the, the, the name wrong. And, uh,

They were really dead-eyed. Their performance was charmingly dead-eyed. Charmingly porn-ish. Yeah. And they're both just such funny performers. But those sketches really made me laugh. Yeah. Does that answer your question, Dana? Well, Kenan had the best answer about who's the greatest cast member. You know, everyone likes to make rankings for albums and everything. And he said the women.

All the women. That's a good answer. Because when Nora Dunn was there and Janet Hooks and Victoria Jackson, it was much more male-dominated. Some of it is because of men in politics and so forth and so on. Julia Sweeney. But then it seems starting with Sherry O'Terry or Vanessa and others, and then it kept building into...

you know, I just Tina and Amy and Maya. Yeah. We had Tina, Amy, Maya, and wig. That's like crazy to have those four in a cast together. Yes. And Dratch was there. She's always a score. Yeah. There was, um, yeah, there was a real sense that, um,

In those era, that era, there was there was literally nothing they couldn't do and sort of late in the week. And then you add Bill Hader and Sudeikis and Fred Armisen and Will Forte, you know, that era that you straddled.

I don't know. We had a killer run. I would say that like to that when, you know, we're talking about that, you know, the Sarah Palin stuff, like the cast at that time with Tina sort of coming back and popping in was, was definitely the strongest top. And it was small. You know, one of the things, and I feel bad, you know, I'm obviously happy for them that they're all on SNL, but you know, sometimes when the cast gets to 20 people, it's really hard for people to break through. And we,

we were only about 10 or 11 at one point. And that was really nice. That's rare because we got big in ours and to have it go backwards is very rare. They just usually add.

We had seven, so everybody got to be on the show a lot. All the birds got fed. How do you get relaxed on the show? How do you get good on the show without being on the show? So you're right, when it's 20 and you have cast members, don't blame them. Why leave something that you're brilliant at staying 10, 12, 13 years? People are on the junior varsity for so long, but I guess it's just the way it is. That, because I think part of it,

is you do sometimes just need to get assigned a thing or two a week where you get the rep

Without having to necessarily kill, you know, those big political sketches where you get thrown, you know, the, you know, some senator at a panel. Yeah. You have a few hours, but you just get in front of the camera and you get to learn cards and other people are going to have the big laughs and people watching at home want to find those new people they can root for and they have to see you in order to root for you.

And you get the butterflies out of the way because they always come, but at least you get a feel for how sickening it is to actually walk 10 feet on camera and turn to face the cameras. You go, oh my God, this is horrible. The other thing, Danny, you know when you do it, and especially at the beginning, you just do your bit and get some laughs and you walk off and everyone's doing their job and you're standing in the hallway going...

Did like 5 million people just see that? I don't even know. I'm just... I never really would think about it. It went out live. It's over. So, Zeth, I want to ask you two things. In a minute, whether you would ever...

become the executive producer of the show because your name's been tossed around. Great, great. And one is, my theory is about the longevity and there's probably 10 metrics to this, but one is when you see an athlete or an actor try to do live sketch comedy, you're watching a reality show. And then when you see people who are never heard of them, never seen them, they're just coming on SNL and you're watching them get their big break is another reality show. So that's, I don't know if it's whoever thought of the show, but

When SNL has a bad show, like say a football player is bombing or whatever, it's still really compelling. And that's kind of not... I mean, a bad show for me watching it is pretty compelling because watching the cast member know it's bad, but holding up the...

You know, so am I. Why do you why do you think 50 years? I'm sure you're asked all the time. I am. Well, I it's interesting because I think that even though it's compelling, people would still criticize the show for being bad the week that athlete was bad or, you know, an actor ate it. But I will say a few years after I left.

There's this really funny writer on the show who's not there anymore either, Mike O'Brien. And Mike and I were back sitting in an office and the current writers were complaining about how bad the host was that week. And it was a major movie star who was sort of being impossible. And they were all in such a bad mood, but their stories were so funny about this person's behavior. And we said, look, the good news is this, like when you leave this show and

You will talk about the disaster week so much more than the weeks that were great because it's just so much funnier to remember how terrible someone was. So even though I feel bad for the audience when they watch a terrible week, just know that the writing staff

And the cast will be able to dine out on that week for years. Yes. In a good way. I mean, Marcy Klein, when she was on, I guess at times she had to, like the host was having a nervous breakdown at like 1115. I can't, I can't make it. And she had to go talk to, didn't want to give us names because, you know, but, um, the drama behind that show, forget the funniness, just the drama. I don't know how many nights I'm sure you had this experience. That's what, um,

I don't know if it's going to make it tonight. It seems like such a shit show. And now it's like almost 11 when we're going into Lauren's office, 50 of us jammed in to get notes and we're on in 28 minutes and you keep your bald cap on. It's like a Fleeny ass thing. People have their, their cold opening fake nose on. I mean, it's just, it's surreal. I feel so I retroactively feel so terrible about, you know, cause I think,

Being a writer on the show, you sometimes forget how human the cast is because Lauren will give you, you know, again, like you said, at 1120, Lauren finally lets you out of the office and you're making changes to a cold open that's going to be on TV in 10 minutes. And then the times that I would run up to somebody like Bill Hader, who the minute he started it,

on the show, we started leaning on him for things like impressions, you know, hosts of news shows, which would often be the framing of the cold open. And so here's Hayter doing an impression of somebody he didn't even know existed last week. And you're running up to him at 1124 saying, hey, this line's different, this line's different, this line's different. And you just, you're treating him almost like, you know, a computer program and assuming he's going to be able to like process the information and deliver it because that's how it looks because ultimately he was so good at it. He would always,

make you have more confidence in him week after week after week. And then you forget all these years later, oh my God, the anxiety we were putting on that person who had to actually be the one who was on camera doing that job. I mean, you had to do it your whole time on the show, Dan. I like the amount you probably started the show with cold opens. I had a weird trajectory because I came in with Phil and Jan Hooks and Kevin Nealon and so forth. And then I was just happened...

happened to be in the first sketch. Madonna did the cold opening on my first show, apologizing for the 85 season like it never existed. So then it was me, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks in a game show where I was a game show psychic. I knew the answer before Phil would ask the question, you know, that kind of thing. And then and that killed, you know, because Phil was so great and Jan and I was riding that wave. And then I did church chat

uh, with Sigourney Weaver up and then I did chopping broccoli. So I came in, I had so much shit. My ex manager went to the stars. Brad Gray came into my office at like 1120, same kind of thing. And he talked like this. He goes, I don't know why. I don't know why, but just show it's your show tonight. I don't know why it happened, but it just laid out that way.

It's very true. It can go any way. You're forced into that. I was using things for my stand-up, which was helpful. I knew where the hooks were. The nerves handling the terror and the nerves. Do you remember your first time you're really crazy nervous because a sketch was leaning on you?

Or you're doing something at update because an update you're talking and then your chair pivots when you're a guest on update and you're kind of thrown out there. That's an interesting vibe as well. Yeah, I was lucky. The first update I did that landed, I got to talk.

As myself, I got to be Seth Meyers and I was talking. It was I was a Red Sox fan, which is true. And so sometimes when you write from truth, it's a little bit easier. And it was about how I hated the Yankees my whole life. But because of 9-11, I was rooting for the Yankees to win the World Series. But since Red Sox fans never get what they want, I had to root against the Yankees in order for them to win. And so it was just it made sense to me. I'd written it myself. It felt like a piece you would do in stand up.

And I remember that went great. And I walked off and not to keep calling back Shoemaker, but Shoemaker met me and I've been giving him shit about this for 20 years. He goes, it'll never go that well ever again. And it was like, Hey, I thought I'd take a victory lap, but he was, you know, the reality is he wanted to remind me and probably, I don't know if you felt like you needed that reminder because that's such a monster for a show. That's Gourney Weaver show. Like it must've been crazy the second week where you realized, Oh,

Oh, it doesn't get. No. Like the last week doesn't lead to the next week. No, no. I was barely in the show. I think I did Casey Kasem for 30 seconds. And I think Lauren saw me at the party and kind of patted on the shoulder. It goes up and down week to week. Just keep going. Brad Gray, 1120. This isn't your week. This isn't your show. This is not your week. I don't know why. The way the cards fell. I want to, just because you mentioned her, I want to tell my favorite Marcy story, which is the promos, you know, the promos.

the famous SNL, like, Hey, this week, you're going to be seeing. Yeah. And, um,

I had to go with Marcy into the host room to tell them about the promo. And she handed this stack of promos and the host read them all and said, none of these are funny. And Marcy just took the whole stack and said, well, in that case, I'll throw them in the garbage. And just dropped them in the garbage in front of the host and walked out. And I didn't know we were allowed to talk to the host like that. Yeah.

I was in charge of promos for two years. It's the roughest job. It's the most thankless garbage job. But you get to meet the host.

Yeah. Shoemaker has a few promos that Farley wrote in his office that are really funny and unusable. It will not surprise you they are unusable. Yeah, I think I was there for those. And then he'd come down, David, I wrote some. Because he'd go, they'd sometimes go up to the writing room and go, everybody, kick in a few fucking promos. Stop for a second. We need something. And then I'd gather them and go down. And then there's a couple of stink bombs in there from Farley. I think he'd write himself in some of them too.

But they would also throw in cast for me. You know, they'd say, hey, bring Chris down or bring in, you know, whoever they thought was funny that week to do a promo with the host. My worst host dressing room was Mick Jagger wanted just a first joke in his monologue. And so, Malaney and I had a piece of paper where we'd written 15 jokes that we collected from the writing staff about...

that he could say is his first joke. And our plan was just to go back and forth. And I, Mulaney read the first one and Mick Jagger didn't laugh. And he goes, "What's the next one?" And Mulaney handed me his paper and I read him the second one and he didn't laugh. And he goes, "What's the next one?" And I handed it back to Mulaney and there were very clearly 15 on it. And John goes, "That is all we have."

Because we just realized we put our favorite two first. And the fact that the ad broke in a spot, we're like, it's only going to get worse. Let's just spare us all the embarrassment. And then you just kind of walked out or see you later, man. Yeah, we just kind of walked out and said, you know, let's just go back to the drawing board. I think it's very clear that we don't have the answer on these pages. Did you ever find something that he landed? Do you remember it? No. I bet if we go back and watch the monologue from that show, the answer is no. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah.

There is that thing, which I know is a bummer to hear, which is sometimes you just, sometimes it is, hey, it's so great to be here. Like you just have to start saying words and let the audience know. Yeah. That this show is, we, what I mean, the first update joke is very rarely the best update joke, almost because you're just trying to like pull the focus in. Settle them in. And get people to pay attention. Yeah.

I think that the guest hosts that do Q&A from the audience is maybe one of the more fail-safe. I love a Q&A from the audience. You have all those different flavors. And you get the cast to fucking act like they're in the audience. I think I wrote one for...

where he had written questions he wanted the audience to ask him. That's funny. That was my... Where do you buy your pudding? Read the one I told you, instructed you to read before. He exposes it right away. Monologues, solo venture. That's why they call them mono one ventures.

Just making it up. I wrote a sketch for him my first or second year, and it was a sketch called Pranksters, which I'm still pretty proud of. And it was one of those sketches that killed at the table, and then we got in the rewrite room, and because it had killed at the table, everybody had a lot of ideas. Sometimes you can overwrite it. Oh, yeah. And so then we bring it out, and we're rehearsing with Walken, and we get like two pages into the new version, and he just stops. He goes, you ruined it. Ha ha ha ha ha.

He goes, you got to go back to the way it was. And we did. And it worked great. But he was right. It's that thing of sometimes, you know, you can overwrite. You can joke on a joke on a joke. It's no good. This year, Dell Technologies' back-to-school event is delivering impressive tech with an inspiring purpose.

With every qualifying purchase, Dell will donate to ComputerAid, who equips solar community hubs with tech and AI literacy skills to empower remote, displaced, or disconnected communities around the world.

This is your chance to empower people globally through AI access and digital opportunity while upgrading your tech now powered by Snapdragon X series processors for game changing performance and to power efficiency. Help Dell make a difference. Shop AI ready PCs and get free shipping on everything at dell.com slash deals. Purchase any PC or monitor between

7-15-24 and 9-11-24. And Dell will donate $1.75 for each eligible product within your purchase to ComputerAid, capped at $1.2 million total. For details and restrictions, go to dell.com slash deals. You know Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program. Oh, yeah. If you want to learn a new language, which no time like the present, it's always fun to learn when you get older.

I know. And it's not learning a language when you're older, you know, over the age of 20 is difficult. You know, I mean, all the high school Spanish I took a grade school Spanish, you know, all I can say is Ola and hasta luego. So it goes out of your head. So now you have Rosetta stone, David, tell them about it. Well, Dana, you know, more than anyone trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users in 25 languages. Uh, I mean, my gosh, uh,

They have Spanish, French, Italian, German. I don't think you can throw them a curveball. I think they're going to know. What don't they have? The language you want. Yeah. And immerses you in many ways. There's no English translations. You know what I'm saying?

I know no English. You need a Rosetta Stone for English. No English translation, so you really learn to speak and listen and think in that language. That's the whole idea of Rosetta Stone is that it sticks to your head. It sticks to your brain. I learned German out of a book. It just doesn't stick as hard, so this is the way to do it. Designed for long-term retention.

There's a true accent feature. It gives you feedback on your pronunciation. Yes. And of course, there's desktop app options. There's an audio companion and ability to download lessons offline. Yeah, so that's great. Lifetime access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers for 50% off. A steal! And I do think that the off-label thing that... I'm ad-libbing now, going off script.

is that when you learn a language and you learn to pronunciate the words in that language, you start to learn about the people who live there and speak that language. Sort of a subtle, intuitive way of integrating with the culture. A little different, yeah. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a very limited time, Fly on the Wall listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off.

You just visit rosettastone.com slash fly. That's 50% off, unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash fly today. All right, before we let Seth go, Dana, ask him. Is this normal? Is this a normal amount of time? I don't want to cut you short. No, I have just one question for him. But do you have one, David?

Well, I was going to see who we, who we think might want to take over, who could handle that job. If, if anyone, I don't think anybody can handle that job and I'm being genuine. Don't you think it's, it's a one man, it's a one man. There's only one man. There's only one man for the job. If you really think about the lanes that Lauren has to fill, um, it's, it's pretty big and how he resisted,

Oh, it's got to go to one hour. It should be more pre-tapes. You need a new theme for the band. So this was decades. Anytime there was a dip in the show, he had the corporate trust, whatever, Universal now, whoever he had to talk to, and he held it steady. And now you think, God, isn't it brilliant that it just stayed branded, identical? That's why everyone we've talked to on this podcast, everyone's had the same experience, the same tiny room, the 8H, all of it. So-

Yeah. I mean, it also, I don't know. I think it's different. No. I think the other part that people forget is that Lauren's status as a icon is incredibly important based on every host that go through those doors because everyone knows who he is. And because of that, everyone from all walks of entertainment or politics or sports is

trusts him and it only works if the host trusts him and if it was somebody else you know look it could be you know it could be somebody who who maybe worked on the show before or maybe was a successful producer somewhere else but no one's gonna have that cultural currency with every single person who comes in there and also they don't act up the host because they go this is a guy just the respect of 50 years and so if it's someone new they know they sort of outrank them

Yeah. Like they do on a movie set or something so they can sort of get away with their shenanigans. Yeah. Cause he knows everybody's seen it all. And the unflappable Lauren character, which he cultivated as part of his comic persona, uh,

That he would never panic. And in the first year he was out there with my first few shows, he'd had a glass of Chardonnay on 8H. The show's going on in between sketches. Oh, this has to breathe. So I guess he has a calming effect to a host. You'll do this and it'll be great. You're going to be happy at the party. And, you know, he's very good at.

Public relations. It's also, I think when I hosted, and at this point, I feel like I knew Lorne as well as you can know him. And I remember right before Sketch, he sort of walked over and I thought, oh, this is going to be this new experience with Lorne. I'm going to find out what is it that he says to hosts right before sketches start. Because that's the one thing I'd never been privy to despite all the time. And he walked over and he said some version of...

and just walked away like literally barely a word just just as sort of a nod and i was like that is part of his you know part of his uh enduring uh you know talents in this field is is sometimes knowing uh when not to say anything and i think very few people have it in in in power in show business very people know uh how sometimes saying less is more uh this sketch has to breathe

That's right before you're starting. Let's not fuck this up. I, I, this is one of my, my last show because I stayed through about halfway through, uh, my last season, uh, before I left. And I wrote, it was the Superbowl episode and I wrote a sketch, uh,

for Melissa McCarthy, where she had ordered a bunch of wings for a Superbowl party. And it was very obvious there was no one at her house, but she was pretending to yell at people off camera to explain why she had these like three trains of chicken wings. And I was under the bleachers with Lauren and it just played to silence. And Lauren, when it was overlooked to me, goes, and again, this is my last show and I'd been there, you know, 12 and a half years, a long time. And he looked at me and goes,

What am I going to do without you? That's great. Yeah. I also, my favorite, I think my favorite Under the Bleachers, it's a Lovett story. When you hosted, Dana, Lovett's came to the show. Do you remember that? He and Edme. And he was, it was such a dream in the same way that it was a dream to spend a week working and writing shows.

uh, with Dana. And also let me, let me note, uh, Sean Penn's celebrity roast was a sketch I wrote when you were there, uh, uh, that I own Wilson. You were Owen Wilson. That is a real feather in my cap as well. Great. It was a great one. But, um,

And Lovitz walked underneath the bleachers right before the show started and goes, started shaking all their hands, goes, John Lovitz, John Lovitz, John Lovitz. And then he turned to Lorne and went, and you are? He loved his favorite thing. Dinging Lorne in the, you know, when you would pitch ideas, you know, for an hour on Monday and the host is sitting there and everyone's pitching. And then the very end, John would always go.

Lauren, what are your ideas? I go, John, why are you trying to disturb our boss? I was there for Will Ferrell's final show because we overlapped for one year. And the last pitch, Will brought in an old typewriter.

And every time, while people pitched, he was typing as if it was his job to write them all down. And it was this really loud typewriter. So people would pitch and be like, and you know, there's so few laughs in pitch. So it just is really loud. And he would go and Will went last at pitch and it went all the way around. And then Lauren says, Will, and Will just basically like rolls up the paper on the way you do on typewriters. He goes, ah.

And then he just very quietly reads through everything he typed. And he said, no, I think we're good. And see, I never got that comfortable to do something, but I love that. Will has that looseness to him to just do that. You know? Yeah. I, I just, just the show always had some anxiety to it. Yeah. That idea. I've never, yeah. A bit in Lauren's room in front of the host. You don't know.

Yeah, that would be hard. So, Seth, you're going back. You're going to do the show. Yeah, I don't know when when this will air, but we will be back doing shows again. I'm going to start in a couple of days. Just for a second, the craziest political environment ever, I think. I mean, they say it every time, but say kind of the craziest thing.

So how are you to look forward to it? How are you going to manage it? I mean, you do the closer looks, you do your comedy. Yeah. I mean, it's really nice because the closer look is this thing that we sort of built that can kind of hold anything. And so we don't need any one kind of news to know we have a show. We sort of have this bucket that we can fill with whatever we want. And I would certainly rather live in boring times. Don't get me wrong, but it is boring.

processing the anxiety is easier with a show than just walking around muttering to myself in the streets. So I'm happy to be back with other people that also think it's fucking crazy. One of my writers, Sal Gentile, who writes A Closer Look, described our show as written for

And by the formerly sane. And we try to keep that as as the way we approach things. How are you? I mean, because everything is like we have these two horses in the race. Trump has got his indictments and he's Trump. And then we have Biden, who even in The Washington Post, New York Times are kind of gone. What's. Hello. Is everything OK over there? You know, so how do you navigate that? Have you done a closer look?

on current Biden, because when he first came out, I didn't really know how to get an angle on him at all. But now he's more interesting.

Yeah, it's really, it's sort of day to day, but I think that as we get closer and we get more into, you know, debate type stuff. Who's the nominee is. Yeah, I mean, obviously it kind of goes without saying it'll be him. And so there won't be a situation where we have, you know, it's obviously not going to be a Democratic primary season. And it was...

Interesting for us last time, but then fascinating how quickly it became a Biden show. I thought that we were going to have 10 Democratic candidates and it would go on until the very, you know, I certainly thought it would be a Super Tuesday situation. It was nuts that it was sort of over by South Carolina. So we have, that sort of then takes your focus on it because they're, you know, Biden, other than, you know, the general, he hasn't been a part of a horse race for years. And back when he was in horse races, he was never close enough to be considered a horse.

you know, a front runner. It's funny how little he even appeared, I guess, 88? Who was playing, who played Biden in your era? In 88, I, boy, I wonder if, I was assigned Bush. I don't know

Who would have done him? He may have dropped out soon enough that we didn't do him. Yeah, never had to. I mean, I just remember- Phil was Stockdale. Dacus did him in 2010. Oh, really? Yeah, Suds. I used to write those for Suds. Suds was a great- It's funny because- Suds. You know- Suds. And we call them Suds. Yeah. But Suds did him- He had a funny take on Biden. Very fun. I, you know-

I would do this on stage that I think that when again, I didn't think he was going to be the nominee that like when he ran for president in 2020, that Obama must have thought you wait. You thought my vice president wasn't the last job you were ever going to have. You thought you thought it was a stepping stone job. Joe, Joe, you don't have to do this, Joe.

Joe, you don't have to do it. No, no, no, no, no, no. But I, I, what I did was I looked at the town halls because I looked at him in 2012 and his debate, uh, vice presidential debate with, with what's his name? And, um, you know, he was, he was pretty, he was, he was pretty strong. You know, he was, he was, and then, uh, the town halls, he just had different rhythms, different stories, a different kind of attitude.

But it's very interesting. It's such a hot oven out there. And my style is to do... I do both. I'll do Trump. And my Trump, I think all of our Trumps got a little better because of James Austin Johnson, who made it into jazz. I mean, he's got breathing techniques. His Trump is crazy brilliant. And your Trump has gotten really, really good because I saw recently. Thank you. And what did... I try to...

I try not to think about it at all. I try to just let Trump speak through me. What's your hook into Trump? Do you have a... Because I always... Mine is that he always sounds like he's pitching a family vacation. We're going to be going things the way you won't believe. We're going to do it. And people say, no, but we're going to do it anyway. You know, all that kind of stuff. I like the one that we keep coming back to is that big guy, strong guy, tears in his eyes. Like that, you know, these makeup stories about sort of...

It's always a, you know, vague, amorphous people, but they're always very big, very strong and very, very emotional about how much they miss him. And I love there's so many hits that he has. He's a stone cold loser is a lot of people are saying, I haven't heard anything. What a beauty, not a 10, not a 10. She's not my type. I mean, he has like a million hits.

He's deeply funny. He is deeply, deeply funny. The Biden thing, the only thing that made me laugh was when he does the whispering. Because the rich don't pay their first year. And then he goes really loud. Because I know how to be loud. He says, I can't believe it's not butter. So that whisper to the yell was the hook that got me. It was really good. The first time I saw you do the whisper thing on Colbert.

It was a real like, ah, that's it. My dad lost his job. No joke. Not getting around here. No joke. No joke. Number one, the two part. Number two, the threat. But you know what? We're all in this ecosystem. So run with anything. I'm just. I remember 2012 that you mentioned the vice presidential debate. And in those years, I would. Paul Ryan. Yeah. Paul Ryan. I would write.

I would write sort of a template debate sketch, but then everybody would pitch in based on having watched the debate. And I remember my phone rang and it was Downey, the aforementioned Jim Downey, former head writer, legendary SNL staff member. And he had this bit that made it in, which was my favorite bit of that debate, which was how...

Biden kept talking about Scranton and how he's from Scranton, but made Scranton sound like a super shitty place. And it was just like, I'm from Scranton. This is a backwater. Yeah.

These are hardscrabble people. You drive through Scranton, roll up your windows. And it was just a really funny, downy observation that Biden talked about his hometown, both from a point of pride and also like never fucking go there. Well, he tells a story recently, I think it was kind of funny that he

You know, I'm eight years old and I see two men on the street, Scram, Pennsylvania. They're kissing. I asked my pops, what's that? And my pop says, that's love. That's just love, son.

from 1953 talking like that? It feels very woke. I don't know, but you know. God love them. God love them. God bless America. Thank you, Seth. So, Seth, thanks for coming on. You're a key piece of Saturday Night Live history. This is where I go into my, you know, an amazing,

run on Saturday Night Live and you know one of the very few people is just where are you going to work Rockefeller Center which is a magic building and a magic place lucky it's where Kenny Among worked

Oh, yeah. Hey, David, how are you? Shoemaker, please say hello. I will. Congratulations on just having a cool show go, too. Thanks, guys. Come visit us soon, now that we're going to be back. I'm going to come in that hot seat again. I'm going to get in the hot seat. Get in the fucking hot seat. And I'm going to just go crazy. I'm going to go completely just... Unusable. Unusable. Unusable. No, no, just go super high energy. Rather than kind of lean into my age, I'm just going to like...

Get some 500 and just go nuts. I'm just telling you now. Can't wait. Okay. Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having me guys. This has been a podcast presentation of cadence 13. Please listen, then rate review and follow all episodes available now for free wherever you get your podcast. No joke folks.

Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13, executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman with production and engineering support from Serena Regan and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.