Hero Song

It's the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast.

Welcome back, everybody.

It's another episode of the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast.

And this week, it's one I never tire of watching it.

There's a real arc to your performance, Andy.

There's an audacity from the very beginning

to Hero Song.

Truly.

Well put.

Let's start with the seeds of Hero Song.

I think our friend Drew Campbell, who makes music, had sent us some beats, right, Keeve?

Oh, you remembering this much better than me already.

I think it's him and Asa Daccone, or it was Asa.

I'm pretty sure it was Drew, though.

And I was listening to it and was just like, oh, that's what this song should be.

It was like me doing like a dime store Jean-Veljean vigilante guy.

That's sort of how it started.

And then obviously the joke became what the joke was.

But that was the deal.

And I think, in fact, you were busy that week for some reason, Keeve, and I recorded with Asa in our office.

Oh, let me get the show run down and figure out where I was.

Yeah, it explains why my vocals are so daring.

It is so daring.

That's the audacity.

It is, again, the premise is we're watching an obviously wealthy man.

decide he is going to become a vigilante.

Yeah, it's like if Bruce Wayne sucked.

Yeah.

And you suck so much.

Yeah, so much.

The suckiest thing about you is you are definitely a dude who thinks you're nailing these notes.

Correct.

But it's so un there is no winking to the camera.

It's like watching an American Idol audition where somebody thinks they're crushing it.

It's before auto-tune, you know?

Yes.

Because it's not terrible, terrible.

No, but it is terrible.

It's very bad.

It is.

I mean, the,

God, what's the right word for it?

It's so drippy.

The bending of the notes and some of the note choices are so atrocious.

The pronunciation of evil.

Evil, yeah, yeah.

Also, the lyrics stink.

Stink.

As I look down on the city,

my heart sinks and cries.

So much crime and evil.

Everywhere deceit and lies.

Brothers turning on their brothers.

Sisters steal it from the sisters.

Where the dying go to die.

Is it funnier because it's a little, all a little off because this guy is off?

Well, it's funnier because you weirdly are happy with what happens.

It's very like a moment in the 80s kind of vocals.

Like, I like these, but it's very like someone trying to be like Steve Winwood or Don Henley or something.

Yeah.

In my mind, obviously, it represents differently because I am not them.

But like the hitting of the falsetto on, I can't dig another matter.

He's like, oh my God, stop it.

That one reminds me of that song in a New York Minute.

It's just.

It would be less funny if you sounded good.

Absolutely.

It had to be kind of sucky.

And also, it's very funny because this guy, I like to think this is a rich guy who is so rich people have always told him, no, you can sing.

Yes.

But I will say the musical inspiration for it is that song in a new york minute oh which is like talking about the city and like yeah you know down by the tracks yeah there's somewhere down the track

i guess it doesn't happen anymore like it's very ripped from that Yorm's brother Asa recorded it, so he just was in New York and was doing it with you, I guess, because he's in it too.

So he's the first guy that looks like a drug dealer kind of walking up to the SUV and doing some sort of illegal activity.

That's him in it.

Yes.

For those that don't know, Asa Yorma's little brother is the lead singer and creator with his buddy of Electric Guest.

Is there band?

I actually asked Asa about his memories from that week and he sent me a little voice note.

So if anyone objects to listening to it, I would leave your headphones on the desk right now.

No objection.

I'll wait till after I hear it.

When I was talking to Andy about this skip and this time, I realized that we were all kind of like blacked out damn near for this period.

Them, because they worked insane hours.

The hours that blacked out were truly the realest.

But yeah, they flew me out.

I had no idea why.

I literally think it was Yorm was busy for some reason.

I knew how to run Pro Tools, which was the program that we used to record vocals.

So I just was like a vibes guy.

And our friend Drew Campbell did the beat.

Drew's a total weirdo.

And we knew he'd have some just dramatic shit.

So we hit him up hell of late.

He sent us a ton of beats and we were just scrolling through stuff.

And I think when Andy heard the piano of Hero Song, he was like, whoa, let it play, let it play.

And we just thought it was this light, delicate piano ballad.

We hadn't heard the drums come in, this absurd drop.

And so he just, I think he immediately started

just

humming something.

And then when the drums came in, everyone just kind of lost it.

And we were like, that's it so fast forward to like 5 a.m i think we like finished the song it was hella late andy went to his apartment to get a couple hours of sleep before they shot it and we just ran around new york like all over it was super fun for me i got to make a cameo in the video i don't know what i was i think i was like a drug dealer slash sex worker what but the idea was that this

was gone to hell and crime had taken over you're telling me he's yarma's brother and the last thing I really remember was that by the time that Akiva started editing, everyone was just fully toast, just like off zero sleep and delirious.

And we really started thinking everything was funny.

Anyways, those are my scant memories of that week.

Okay, thank you, Asa.

I think we can agree Drew Campbell's a weird guy.

Do you agree with that, Seth?

I do.

Well, I mean, hearing it from Asa, who has always has a lockbox of a memory.

Shout out to Drew Campbell.

He also made the beat from Other Lover with Asa.

Oh, that's good.

And Boombox.

I also like this deep into our podcast that Asa thinks people don't know the SNL schedule is nuts.

I know.

He's not a listener.

Yes.

So he self-assigned himself the role of sex worker, apparently.

He was just like, we don't know what he's selling.

He's on the street walking up to a window of a car.

You're selling something.

He's selling something.

Yeah.

But at no time did we say, hey, you're a sex worker.

Right.

I mean, I think you could see it in his performance, maybe.

Right.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Asa.

Yeah, thank you, Asa.

Thank you, Asa.

You are this wealthy person.

You're very upset at the direction your city is going.

You are in your sort of glass walled apartment, and then you sort of take to the streets to show people exactly how bad things are.

Can I ask a question, a production question?

Was that Flat Hotel again?

Because we got a better room and you somehow made it look kind of fancy.

And I think it was.

Oh, look, I'm pretty sure.

Somebody is joining us from Finland.

Oh, well, here's someone who will be able to really clear things up.

Moy.

Welcome.

Yorma joining the pod.

This is very exciting.

I feel like not a lot of pods are so, I don't know, hastily thrown together that one of the hosts just joins mid-pod.

I thought you were going to say fluid.

We're fluid.

We are a fluid.

This is more like a morning zoo crew, which is what Yorm always wanted.

Yorm has always wanted.

Zoo crew.

Man, we can't be shocked jocks unless there's four of us.

Boy, shock shock jokes.

Jorm, were you there the week we made Hero Song?

No, no, I got to watch these separately because I was still, I was doing Atlanta Lost.

Well, then don't take this the wrong way.

Off you go.

Goodbye.

Thanks for stopping by.

Jorm, do you know how many you missed?

Like, when are you back?

I missed eight.

So this is, this is actually the perfect amount of time for me to be shooting in Finland while you guys talk about the ones that I missed.

Was it the complete rest of the season or did you come back?

Yeah, I missed the entire rest of the season because it was 65 days.

I think it was an 80-day shoot, and I shot for 65 days.

That's a lot of days.

For people who don't know movies, that's a ton of days.

To be in chocolate makeup, three and a half hours in, half an hour out?

Yeah.

That was a lot of days.

What was the last comedy that got 80 shooting days?

Land of Lost.

Maybe, right?

That was it.

Yes, probably.

When the box office happened, they're like, we can't give these guys 80.

Tropic Thunder?

Barbie, does barbie count barbie does barbie counts yeah barbie would definitely have been plus 80.

yeah but we're talking about hero song yoram i don't know if you've watched it recently i i did and i re-watched it and i i also just remember the feeling of like loving seeing

uh for twofold just like missing you guys so much and watching it from my crappy apartment and being so sad missing you guys and so and then also being so relieved that i didn't have to do any work sounds very fair thank you.

We were talking about the moment where Andy goes down to the streets to show us how bad it is.

There is a moment I really love.

There's a guy sort of who seems to be down on his luck, sort of huddled next to a fire hydrant.

Yeah.

But then there's a moment where you open a dumpster, Andy,

and you just shake your head at the sad state of things.

But it like, it's just a dumpster with like folded up cardboard boxes.

Doesn't look bad at all.

I think the original idea about it was that it doesn't make sense, which makes me laugh.

But also there's subtext maybe which is like they didn't even recycle these

that's what i got i could not figure out you do look you're like

it's come to this you're like an earth warrior like um captain planet or something yes exactly like they put all these cardboard boxes in the normal dumpster what the

are you wearing um sort of michael douglas suspenders i can't remember now

I have a scarf that's very Wall Streety, but it's also kind of American Psycho-y and Bruce Wayne-y.

Yeah.

That one Bruce Wayne shot where you're in the middle of the street with everyone walking by, but you're the only one like feeling its rhythm.

That's a Tootsie shot.

Tootsie shot.

Oh, yeah.

That's another Tootsie.

And we're calling them all out.

Mm-hmm.

You have the line, the aforementioned line, I can't take another murder.

And then you open up a newspaper, one of those newspaper machines, and the headline is 50 more murders.

50 more murders.

Yeah, that's pushing them to the brink.

You're at a place where you can't even take one more.

Yeah, and then the frustration shows.

I will say it really slow burns.

Like these are titters.

They are not big laughs.

No.

No, right?

It's an all-or-nothing piece.

It's detailed work, though.

Then, though, we see what, where it's going, why it's called Hero Song.

Of course, the audience didn't know it was called Hero Song.

They're just like surprised Andy thinks he can sing this song.

And then you're on the corner of a building.

That has to be 30 Rock, right?

That glorious shot.

Yes, it definitely is.

We're just on the roof garden where it has the thing where it's like 10 steps higher, so you can safely stand there.

I want to say something.

It's a fantastic superhero costume.

I agree.

It is.

And I believe it already was made from a different sketch years earlier.

And that also would have been a huge drag if the suit stunk.

Yeah.

Yes.

It would have made it a lot less good.

Also, that shot, I remember the first time I saw it when I went in to edit and Keith had been assembling and I was like, hey, that shot looks fucking good.

Well, the audience reacts to how good the shot is.

Yeah.

And also just the reveal that that's where it was going.

They're like, oh, no.

You look cool.

You look dope.

And then we take it to the streets.

I wouldn't go that far.

I would say I look dope.

You looked pretty cool.

You know what I liked?

It wasn't one of those.

Sometimes the superhero suits in comedy sketches are too bulky, like it's too fake muscly.

Sure.

And other times they're too leotardy.

And it was like right in the sweet spot.

Okay.

You looked as though you'd be a little formidable.

You enter a sidewalk scene where Sudakis is taking a purse, wrestling a purse away from our host that week, Amy Adams.

You sing to him.

He notices you and he's like looking at you and kind of listening now as you say you're about to meet your maker.

Yeah.

Because Justice has a new name.

Justice has, and then you do a, can you do the yeah, yeah, yeah?

I'm going to try it, but no judgment.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's pretty on the Monday.

Yeah, great.

Wish it would rain, dude.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of, lot of wish it would rain connectivity.

And then

everything's been heading towards the next moment which is uh sedakis punches you so hard so hard and you immediately have a great Andy Slackjot face he is you did not see it coming nobody saw it coming you stop unhand her right now

you're about to beat Jamaica

justice has a new name

I really like to think this guy, it never occurred to him that someone would hit him.

He's like, no, no,

I'm the guy.

I'm going to be the guy.

So as soon as I see the suit, I'm just going to win.

Right.

Yeah.

Jason never looks even a little bit scared by you.

Kind of can't believe it.

I also do think that in this world, right, he's hearing you sing.

Oh, for sure.

So he has no respect for any part of you.

I'm singing for way too long, too, for someone who's trying to intervene.

Amy Adams knows you everyone.

He just punches you.

I had Kevin count it up.

How many times do you think you get punched in this sketch?

73.

55 times.

Damn it, I overshot it.

55 times.

And it's just a rhythmic ass kicking.

Oh my God.

He's holding you up.

He punches you like 25 times.

You finally take a knee.

We cut to Amy Adams is concerned.

Well, yeah.

She realizes it's not going well.

He punches you another like 15 times on your knee.

Then Then there's the really nice move where you don't think a punch could be heightened, but he punches you and you spit up a little bit of blood.

Yeah.

And it hits harder.

The sound effect amps up too, I think.

There's also a moment in there where they're slowing down and you're like, okay, we're almost done.

And then it cuts to a new angle and they start going twice as fast.

You're like, oh, no.

I was going to say, I do want to take a moment to commend Akiva's editing again, where it was like, it found so many extra jokes other than just it's the same punch over and over and over again.

Like it has its own kind of rhythm to it.

And that is one of the moments that gets me where you're like, okay, it's going to, it's going to end.

And then, no, we got a second win.

And the audience, again, you don't know right until you show it.

But you know while you're watching it that you had gotten the alchemy right because the audience is a wave.

They're riding this wave.

They are so on board with the punching and every little shift is working.

And then much like, you know, last week in The Mirror, we had some great nonverbal acting for My where you're just making sounds.

The sound you make when you turn back up after you spit on blood.

You're just sort of like, ooh.

He's posted.

It definitely, towards the end, there, it takes a turn right after that where I do go like, oh, is he going to, is he going to kill this guy?

Like, you're on Sudecas's side.

You're on Sudecas' side to a point.

And then at a certain moment, I'm like, oh, leave him alone.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know, man.

I'm rooting rooting against my guy the whole time.

Part of the singing being so annoying is teeing up this.

When he gets the two by four, I'm like, wait, he doesn't deserve that.

Well, there is, yeah.

There's a great moment.

So basically, Amy Adams decides to cut her losses.

Yeah.

She leaves and thanks you.

Yeah, very brave.

She says, you're very brave.

She says you're very brave.

Honestly, her performance, because she's Amy Adams, being so grounded in real is helping every moment of it.

Yeah.

She really also might be thinking this guy's going to kill him uh you finally hit the ground she's gone and then it's really i mean you can tell when sudakis picks up the mailbox that it's you know not a real mailbox but it's been it's been there the whole time and you couldn't tell yeah that's behind the car though you know that was a for two well it was great so didn't know explain this two in a row totally two in a row is this just dumb luck because dumb luck he throws a mailbox on top of Andy and he hits him with a two by four in each case,

right as a car goes by.

That's right.

Yeah, it's random.

Listen, the cardboard boxes in the dumpster, I guarantee, is just we went to the first dumpster we saw and you opened it and we went, oh, it's just cardboard boxes.

That's fine.

And there's no lights out there.

We just went out on the street with the crew, it was probably three more people than what's on camera.

We were probably six people total out there with Amy and one security guard because it's the host.

Did you have security guards?

Because I remember shooting shorts being like, ooh.

We had security guard.

When you take the host, you have to always, there would always be a guy.

But it's not like there's a ton of traffic either it's almost like yeah a perfectly cued two cars at two moments and it makes it seem a lot more real and also more painful and brutal yeah

here's a fun bts the one thing lauren asked us to cut and we did was sudakis after the two by four leaves then walks back and spits on me

i remember that was it a dress uh i don't believe it played a dress.

I remember showing this to Lorne on a phone in his office.

Oh, really?

Really?

Did we ever do that?

No, it was a one-time thing.

I think it played a dress, and he just went, I would lose the spit.

I pretty much remember being under the bleachers and him, because I remember that, too, because we so rarely got a note from Lorne.

It was usually we just played it, and he would go, hmm, nice work.

And then we'd move on.

You remember showing it to him on the phone, though?

That's so specific as a memory.

Yeah, that's so specific.

I remember it being that one and showing it to him his office.

I don't remember why.

But he cut.

And by the way, he's right.

Yeah, it was unnecessary.

It was us being, you know, masochistic, but it still makes me laugh.

If you're wondering if my neck hurt badly for the next two weeks, it did.

Maybe that's why you always have to do your little neck cracks in the morning, you know.

It's possible, but I will also say worth it.

And that's just from simulating the head going back?

Yeah.

I mean, we shot so many fucking punches.

Right.

Yeah, we're not looping it, are we?

Are some of those the same ones being shown again?

I don't think so.

We had one camera.

I mean, no wonder your neck hurt because that's 55 in the version that airs and you shot it so many more times.

How late do you think it was when you were outside with Amy Adams?

Well, that's a great question.

I have no clue.

Somewhere between midnight and two, probably.

Yeah.

Maybe we might have got her right after blocking on Friday.

So we might have got her at like 9.30.

I don't know, though, because it was really close to 30 Rock where we shot and there's like no one around.

That's true.

By the way, the fact that there's no professional lights, it's so well lit.

It is.

If you had professional lights, that's how you would want it to look.

We would move till we got under a streetlight.

Right.

Or like scaffolding lighting or whatever.

That was scaffolding lighting and it was really good.

You want more BTS, Seth?

Love BTS.

I think that might be what a lot of the listeners are here for.

It's definitely the podcast for BTS.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Smooth like butter.

I mean, if you're asking me, I'm all about that standing next to you, but that's solo work.

I understand.

We had a different idea this week.

I'm not going to go into great detail about it, but it was a song that would have been a duet with me and Amy Adams, and it was very dirty.

Oh, I know that's kind of shitty to not say what the premise was.

It was basically like we were both really old and we were having a picnic, like old people, couple, and one of us gets stung by a scorpion, and then one of them is, I'm dying or something.

And the one lament

on my deathbed is that we didn't explore things more sexually

in our life.

And it's this like huge up anthem about that.

And we played the beginning of it for her and read a bunch of the lyrics and she thought it was very funny.

And she was like, so nice.

As always, we love Amy.

She's a genius.

And she was like, that's really funny.

I can't do that.

Little girls are so like obsessed with Enchanted right now.

They will find this and it will be scarring for them.

And like, I just can't mix that right now.

Love the answer.

I remember us being like, okay.

And then when we went out to shoot Hero Song, within five minutes, a mother and her little girl walked up and the look on the little girl's face upon seeing Amy Adams, I was like, oh, she was so right.

And it was very, it was very instructive for me.

It's not something I even ever thought about in our line of work.

You know what I mean?

Of like, oh, she has an obligation.

Yeah.

A responsibility.

Like, she actually has an obligation and a responsibility to those kids.

and she took it really seriously.

And I remember being really impressed by that.

Yeah.

Especially because I think you can do serious work as an actor, but you just can't do something on a show kid.

Like SNL is a show kids would watch, right?

Well, it also spoke to the internet's influence.

Like up until that point, YouTube and stuff, that was like a year or two into it even existing and being a thing that people would be like, I'm going to watch everything with Amy Adams because I love Enchanted.

Right.

And accidentally finding that proposed song.

Can I just gratuitously mention one thing.

Gratuitous, go.

Speaking of Amy Adams, she's in my wife's movie, Night Bitch, which comes out December 6th.

And she's fucking amazing in it.

Oh, yeah.

Do a plug.

There, that was my plug.

That's a good plug.

Night Bitch.

Cool.

All right.

Bye, Yorm.

Bye.

My money.

Thanks for stopping by.

Yorm, your skin looks rosy and moist.

Have you been in a sun situation?

First of all, I took off my pants while we were talking just now because I just came from shooting at a theme park.

And Jason Siegel says, hi, hi, by the way, guys.

Hey, hello to him.

By the way, I like that you keep giving us details, none of which mean you would have to take your pants off.

I just took off my pants because I was at a theme park.

At one point, that really made no sense at all.

It was a long day of shooting, guys.

We were out on a lake.

We were a bunch of people on a boat, and then we were at a theme park.

What day of shooting is it?

This is day three.

I just completed day three of 32.

Well, congratulations.

You're actually shooting.

You're doing it.

You're shooting a movie.

And you're rallying to do the podcast, which is impressive.

And we don't take that.

What is it?

Take it for granted.

Hey, I do.

I take it for granted because I didn't want to do a podcast.

Okay, but go on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I knew that, though.

Suds did spit on you a dress, Sandberg.

Yeah.

So it did play address, but then why would we have played it for Lauren on a phone in his office?

That I don't know.

Maybe there was a question about for Amy Adams or something.

Maybe he asked After Dress to cut the spit and we showed it to him to put him at ease.

That's very possible.

Like, hey, this is what we did.

Now can it err?

And he he said yes again yeah we so rarely got notes i bet you that's exactly what we did well i bet you we cut it and then you went let me go run it to him to make sure that he thinks it's good but do you remember that year that lauren was like does your phone have video do you have video on your phone and he just like wanted everybody to show him videos on his he couldn't believe it yeah yeah that's so cool he's like well you know that's crazy oh my god that's just in your phone that's like dick tracy's watch well seth this is a callback but i remember playing it for him and then him going like yeah it looks good tell seth he's not good at impressions

you know what though you're a good friend because you kept that for me there's no reason to tell me that no and i've actually now feel bad that i told you now well it's all right it's in the press he's on record now

a top comment from six years ago is he still did his job saved her oh which is really nice

that's the takeaway that's great sometimes it's a noble sacrifice you know i love that that's great Here's somebody else that says, this is exactly the real deal.

I mean, like, when you think you have a great idea for your future, but then life life hits you right on the balls.

Like the metaphor of life.

People are really getting like life meaning out of this.

I would just say I love Hero Song.

I think it's great.

I think it holds up really well.

Thanks, Sophie.

Bravo to you guys.

I will say it's one of the ones where I was laughing a lot when we were editing.

Yeah.

Which I always remember that a very fond way specific to our process of like, it reminds me of like how we were when we started out, where you're not just doing it to make something where it's actually actually like, you're discovering why it's funny as you're cutting.

I also remember watching it and having discussions with you guys where you were like, nah, we're not going to tell you what it's about.

And just being like, no, yeah, that was the right move.

Right.

Well, yeah,

you have to have the element of surprise.

Oh, yeah.

We wanted your honest reaction.

Do you remember why Asa was in New York?

No.

I was going to ask you guys about that, but no, who knows?

Because obviously he's in it.

We talked about that right before you jumped on Yorm.

That's right.

So you got a little replacement Yorm, like a Yorm from Concentrate, as I like to say.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm sure he loves that.

Mark he danced.

Yorm.

Yorm from Concentrate.

Yeah, he's got more muscles and he's a little.

He's just like compact and everything's more.

Yeah, but it's harder.

Everything's harder, too.

It's less soft.

Yeah, it's harder.

More pure.

Seth, have you ever called Josh Seth from Concentrate?

You think he would take kindly to that?

But he's not smaller or more muscle.

I bet he's like that.

So harsh.

First appearance of Vampire Weekend on the show?

Yes.

Wonderful.

Want to guess the songs?

First album.

What songs are they doing?

Archimedes.

Nope.

Nope.

I'm a big fan, and I have trouble sometimes remembering which songs are from which albums.

That's totally fair.

A-punk, I would have gotten.

Oh, yes, of course.

Did we do a Yorm dancing with them?

We did, right?

But was it that time, or was it when they came back?

Good question.

Let's see if I can find it on YouTube.

There's some recurring characters in the show.

This cast is starting to bring those.

There was a lovely Penelope.

There was the first Jean-Kaijan that aired.

There was a Tim Calhoun, an update.

There was a really funny sketch called Nearly Identical Twins.

Do you remember this Joast Kenword sketch?

It was an ABC family sketch.

It was a show about,

it was like called Double Trouble or something.

And it was a long sort of opening theme song that showed that Amy and Kristen were two identical twins who would trick people at school into thinking they were just one person and they would get a lot of work done.

And then the very last shot is like, and then things got really tricky because one of them gained a lot of weight.

And so it was Amy Adams as one twin and then Wig is the other one who basically talked like this.

And what I remember about the sketch is that Amy would look at the camera a lot and wink and there'd be like a gliss like bing.

And every time Wig winked at camera, there was a fart sound effect.

I guess that.

And here's a little BTS.

Can I BTS or is it just you guys?

Oh, you have to BTS.

You can.

We run the show.

If you don't BTS, what are we even here for?

As long as you make it smooth like butter.

Standing next to you.

So Entertainment Weekly was writing a story about the show that week because we had come back from Writer's Strike and it was a political season.

And I remember the reporter was with me in the booth.

And, you know, the whole bent of the article was sort of about SNL and politics.

And it was just really funny because we were kind of talking in the booth while they were blocking that sketch and the amount of like fart sound effects that were playing.

Yes.

It was really great.

Can I rewind?

Please.

I have a question about Vampire Weekend.

Great.

Have they been on SNL for every album they've put out?

And if so, how many bands or artists can claim that distinguished honor?

They're four albums, correct?

If it's four albums, I'm going to say they, I bet they're already.

I guess it can be five because they just put out a new one and they did come on for it right okay hold on yeah you're right okay five albums five albums from 08 to 24 five albums were they on for the most recent one and is that the only one missing they were they were they were yeah oh right with maya of course i watched it so they've done snl four times oh they skipped one so they didn't do it for their 2019 i bet it was for father of the bride because of covid that's my guess you're right they would have missed father of the bride was 2019 album but i bet by the time they were doing it, it was.

Okay.

Do we want to get a voice note from Ezra to fill in the gaps here?

Sure.

Yeah.

Hey, what's up, fellas?

Big fan of the podcast.

Great work, everybody.

Oh, that's nice.

In terms of Vampire Weekend's history on Saturday Night Live, here's what I remember.

We were, you know, very excited to be invited on for our first three albums.

And I remember going into our fourth album, being informed by people who tend to know these things that it's very rare for a band to be invited on four times in a row.

I don't know if it's like a three is the magic number type thing.

It's probably rare to be invited on three albums in a row, but I remember having very tempered expectations for album number four because that would make it a, you know, a clean four album sweep.

We were invited back on the fifth album, so maybe we did need to take a break.

But you know, every time you're invited on SNL, you have to think of it as a as a gift and an honor, not something to be expected.

But all of this does beg the question, maybe you guys know, or maybe you can get somebody to crunch the numbers, how many artists have been on SNL five albums in a row?

If so, you know, what's the story?

These are the superstar best-selling artists of their generation.

Does it happen more often than maybe I think?

I have no idea, but I'd love to get some statistics on that.

Thank you.

That is the question.

So he had the same question I had.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

He is so palpably angry at Lauren.

Oh, about the fourth album, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you can feel the heat coming off him.

Yeah, he's stewing.

Like, my ears are singed.

Just furious.

He finally had an outlet.

He's been waiting for that.

He's been waiting for the text.

Somebody finally asked him, and he was like, ready to go.

I mean, that's a rant.

He just heard a rant.

But he like then, Ezra

did some digging, right?

Yeah.

So after he sent this, he texted, this is just in some brief digging around.

He saw that the strokes have six albums and played SNL four times.

And then he says, Arcade Fire is the only 21st century band i can find that played s nl five times in a row so maybe a listener will have more details so what does arcade fire have that vampire weekend doesn't have what the strokes doesn't have yeah why well there's an obvious answer what 11 band members no from canada ah

the truth revealed you know lauren michael's order of canada yeah gonna throw a bone to his people yeah that's what it is yeah so i guess we have an answer for ezra there was nothing you could do ezra it's so hard not to try and do a better than Ezra joke.

But you're doing good, not doing it so far.

Yeah, and Norm kind of shut the book on it, I think.

He did.

He has the all-timer.

But still, like.

You know what?

Just if we can do it, I mean, it's historic, and I feel like none of us will do it justice.

Cut in right now the Norm Better Than Ezra joke.

And in music news, number one on the college charts this summer was better than Ezra.

And at number two,

Ezra.

Yorm, are you sunburned sunburned or is I think I am.

I think I got really sunburned.

Were you outside at the theme park all day just riding the rides, doing the do no?

I was at, we had a move.

We were doing a fight scene on a boat with people getting pulled.

You're shooting Finland for Orlando.

That's for upstate New York.

And by the way,

where I wanted to shoot.

And when I was driving from Helsinki to where we're shooting, I was like, looks a lot like upstate New York.

So, you know, other side of the world.

You got to wear sunblock.

clearly.

Clearly.

Oh, Adele's only done music twice on SNL.

Oh, so she's not in the club.

What do we call it?

You know, like how you call something like an egot or something, someone who has been musical guest for every album.

We got to think of a good name for that.

Okay.

An every timer kind of thing.

Sound off in the comments.

You know, that obviously makes me think about five timers.

I had Steve Martin and Marty Short on my show, and it was very funny because they said to Kevin Miller, who is a second producer on our show as well, hey, we just want to have a conversation with Seth.

We don't want it to just be all jokes.

And then they showed up and they're like, we're just going to do 100 jokes.

Do they not want you to do jokes?

No, I mean, they just, they are sort of old school guests where they just want to do like setup punch.

You know, here's a couple of things Marty said.

He said, of all the anti-vaxxers, I'm his favorite host.

And he also said, what were you saying backstage about how we're dangerously close to having our first female president?

Oh, my fucking God.

And then I said, what's the hardest you've ever made the other one laugh?

And Steve said, oh, I think it was the time Marty said, should we split the money 50-50?

God damn.

And then, and then I said, what about you, Marty?

He goes, nothing comes to me.

Back-to-back win.

It hurts my feelings a little bit that they're still funnier than everyone else.

They're still so funny.

Yeah, that's hurtful.

Wow.

Yeah.

I guess I will never be funny.

Matt, this is it.

He also, Steve had a story about, he goes, I was having a safe put in and I said to the guy, I go, hey, can you put a safe in my apartment, but like, don't tell anybody.

I don't want people to know I'm getting a safe.

And the guy said, oh, yeah, I won't tell anybody.

Jerry Seinfeld asked the same thing before I put one in his lake house.

And he goes, and then I saw Jerry Seinfeld and I said, hey, how's that?

How's that safe in your lake house?

And he goes, good.

How's yours in in your library?

Seth, you can't tell that.

No, he told it on the show.

Oh, that's public knowledge.

He's just recounting.

So, do you think he made it up?

I mean,

do you think that there's a lot of

thieves listening to this podcast being like, oh, I know where I'm going?

Only one way to find out.

We're going to do a heist.

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I want to say another, just a nice thing, which is I went and said hi to Marty and Steve.

And then I went and said hello to Juno Temple, who was also on the show.

And I'd never met her.

She'd done the show via Zoom during COVID, but I was talking to her.

And while I was talking to her, Steve Martin poked his head in and introduced himself to Juno and just said, Hey, I just want to say hello.

It's so fun that we're doing the show together.

And she's like, oh my God, thank you.

And then he walked out.

And it was this really great moment where Juno looked at me like, holy shit.

Like I just, you realize like we sometimes get a little,

I don't know, desensitized to how fucking amazing it is to know Steve Martin or to know Martin Schwartz.

Sure.

And to watch somebody for the first time get to say hello to Steve Martin was a very cool thing.

Yeah, you're talking about one of the most iconic people ever.

Yeah.

Well, most people, Seth, don't meet two to three to four famous people every day for work, where they come to their work every day.

I got a good system worked out.

I like that you glommed us into your thing.

Like, you know how we all are jaded about meeting super famous people because we can't get away from them because that's what we're paid for?

Because three or four parade through our office.

Most of our lives lives are spent around them.

And you know how, like, when you meet them, you keep them in three little rooms next to each other.

Like a little bit of a zoo.

And you kind of like open a door and there's one, and then you open another door and there's another one.

Meanwhile, we're all three like, we haven't left the house in six years.

There were a couple things, I mentioned the recurring things, but there was a really joasty sketch in the show,

Joast and Klein, which was barbecue OR, where Forte was a guy who had a barbecue restaurant that was also a doctor's office.

And he was just like, crazy, wheel talk.

And it was just an insane, good, late-in-the-show sketch.

But there was a really nice moment where they cut to Keenan and Hayter as customers.

He was like, just listen to these two satisfied customers.

And Keenan says,

sure, there are places where you can get better barbecue.

And Bill says, and sure, there are places where you can get safer medical care.

And then they just stopped talking.

It was a very nice move that I don't feel like I'd seen before.

Oh, here's, wait, I just remembered another thing.

Marty said, Steve told me only murders in the building is the best thing he's written since Project 25, 2025.

Oh, oh, oh.

So I was back at SNL, as you know.

Yeah.

And I was talking to the head of makeup, Louie.

Yeah.

And we were talking about Nurse Nancy.

Ah.

And it came up because he very nicely had said he had listened to the podcast.

And he was all, there's something I never told you about Nurse Nancy.

And I was like, what is it?

And he said, the prosthetics we put on you for Nurse Nancy were leftover Jiminy Glick.

Whoa.

And I was like, the fuck.

And he was like, yeah, dude, we just had one and we didn't have anything else ready.

So I just slapped a Jiminy Glick prosthetic on you for Nurse Nancy.

So what you were seeing in that short was a Jiminy Glick prosthetic with a different wig.

Wow.

Oh, we got to go back.

I got to go back and watch it now.

Yeah.

I mean, it looked so good.

That kind of explains why they had such an amazing suit.

Once he said it, I was like, oh my God, I actually can kind of see it.

Like the shape of the way the front of it is.

Yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of people would pay a fortune to, I mean, at an auction, for charity auction, if you were like, you want to be Jiminy Glick for a day and you just got it because they didn't have anything.

That's right.

Spare parts.

It was like comedy fantasy camp to find that out.

Oh, can I just say something about the rundown from Amy Adams?

All right, go ahead.

So this is my favorite kind of thing at SNL.

On the rundown, it says, note, Tukey Styles will be played back as a VT for air.

A very professional memo about Tukey Styles.

Tukey Styles was a Tucker topic.

Tukey Styles is a Tucker sketch that is so...

I watched it today, and I feel like it might be too hard to explain.

But the name is so perfect.

Seeing it written out in a professional manner, like, hey, just so you know, this thing called Tuki Styles that we all know what it is, yeah, that's going to be played as a VT.

Tukey Styles had a dance called the Zuki Styles.

He had a cable access show in New York City from 78 to 82.

He had guests on that were political guests, a lot of whom were involved in different worldwide crises.

And while he was teaching them the Zuki Styles, there was gunshots and security kept running out.

And this was like his best of DVD.

It is the most, I mean, the hyper-specificity.

You know what?

Actually, I'm going to do it.

I bet we can get it.

We're now going to play a voice note from Brian Tucker that we have just requested, asking him for any memories he has about Tukey Styles.

Hey, guys, it was fun to visit Tukey Styles again, a sketch that almost nobody remembers, but I'm glad you guys did.

As for the origin of that sketch, I remember we wanted to do something about hip-hop in the late 70s and early 80s, that Curtis Blow and Sugar Hill Gang era.

But one thing I also remember about that particular time is there were a lot of assassination attempts.

Like Reagan had been shot, the president of Egypt had been shot, the Pope had been shot.

So we thought we would combine early hip-hop and assassination attempts into one rocket ship of an SNL sketch.

And although I forgot about it, kind of, I found it on the internet and I watched it again and I laughed to myself, which was more than the audience did.

My favorite line was when Keenan said, those were good times.

Some of them good, some of them bad, most of them bad,

which I really enjoyed.

So thanks for remembering Tukey because I'm not sure else who else would.

And I'll hope to talk to you guys sometime.

That's a very, very nice, succinct explanation of what Tukey was.

Thank you, Brian.

I feel like that was a little bit of a hit on some of the other voice notes, but yeah.

Oh, no.

I, well, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah.

We can rank them at this point.

Yorm specifically.

Yeah.

Is that voice note criterion?

I don't know.

But it was nice and succinct.

Thank you, Brian Tucker.

Appreciate that.

All right, guys.

So that was the third of four.

Next week is Jonah.

And let me say, which is very exciting, all four of these hosts in this run, first-time hosts.

And I think that that was one of the other things.

It was very exciting.

Tina, Elliot, Amy, Jonah.

Yeah, that's a really good run.

Really good run.

Did you guys know, I I mean, we'll talk about it, but my one question: how well did you know Jonah before he showed up?

Definitely, we had met him before it.

I want to say through Bill and stuff because of Superbad.

Yes.

Yeah, I met him on the set of Knocked Up.

Remember when we were talking about Hot Rod, and I was like, I'd never even been on a movie set, and I went to Knocked Up just because it was filming and it was a movie that I knew I could because we had met Judd.

You know what?

We for sure knew him because we went to a Superbad screening in New York.

Yeah.

And our movies came out very close to each other, Hot Rod and Superbad.

Right.

And they both did equally well.

After Knocked Up came out and Hot Rod had bombed, I texted Michael Sarah and Jonah and I was like, hey, I left the country for a while.

How'd our movies do?

I remember sitting in that screening and, I mean, you can imagine, it's Superbad.

So it was destroying.

Yeah.

And we had just been in so many screenings of Hot Rod where it would play, in our minds, pretty well.

Like it would get all the laughs where it's supposed to get laughs, but there's just fewer laughs or it's just less aggressive the whole way through.

And Super Bad was just, and I was like, oh, this is what it could feel like in a theater full of people.

There's a difference.

And like people knew freaks and geeks and were like cheering for the cast.

And I was just learning about a lot of those people.

And I was like, oh, this is a thing that already exists and is about to be on fire.

Yeah.

We definitely were catching up.

But yeah.

And then I had met Jonah on the set of knocked up and he was there.

I think I talked about this on the hot rod app, but he was there and he wasn't even filming that day because he was so young.

He was just like so excited to be allowed on a movie set.

So he would just show up on days he wasn't filming just to like pitch jokes.

So I definitely met him in Video Village.

Did you go, Keith, to like feel like what it was to be on a movie or no?

Like, or you just went?

Yeah, yeah.

It was like a few months before we were going to shoot Hot Rod.

And I just went to be like, can I come to your movie set and just sit there and just see a movie set?

Yeah, by the way, I think even before that, maybe even before we got SNL, I read a few rogue parts at a table read.

What was the movie Jonah did with Justin Long?

Accepted.

Yes.

I was at the table read for Accepted.

Oh, that's cool.

And maybe because our friend Lauren Gray was doing the casting.

That's a wild guess.

That's a pretty good guess.

Were you doing like bit parts?

I was just reading a few rogue parts.

Yeah, because I did stand up and whoever asked me to come do it.

I'm pretty sure it was Lauren was like, oh, they need someone funny to just read a few parts.

Anyway, that was the first time I think I ever saw Jonah.

And I remember being like, this kid is fucking killing.

Like every time he was like going off script and doofing around and like had the room.

And I was like, oh yeah, he's real.

There you go.

Well, I'm very excited to talk about his episode when we join each other next week.

Thanks for coming in all the way from Finland, buddy.

No problem.

This is lovely to see you guys.

Congrats on starting your movie.

I hope the rest of your week goes well.

Thank you.

I'm going to go eat food now.

Jorm, let me sit down.

Actually, I got long johns on, so I didn't really take off my pants.

I like took off my pants to reveal other pants.

That's why.

I realize now there's a lot of other people on this Zoom, and I shouldn't have asked, but I'm glad they were long Johns now.

Yeah.

It's fine.

You know me.

Yeah, but they didn't ask me.

That's true.

That's true.

Do we have HR on this podcast?

Yes, for sure.

I mean, maybe we should, based on my behavior.

I'm taking full credit.

I'm taking the hit.

You were just being a good friend.

Yeah.

Yorm, talk a little more.

The people miss you, bud.

I love you guys.

I feel like this has become a two-person podcast that I'm I'm not enjoying.

Seth, sometimes you got to let someone else take the wheel.

I'm not saying it's Jesus.

Yeah, it's not all about you, Seth.

All right.

I left it open-ended.

Could be any deity.

Keith.

Just trying to end this.

Just let him eat.

I think Andy's lonely.

He is lonely.

I got hella friends up in this living room.

All right.

I love you guys.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Seth, Festival.

Don't fucking code you.

Andy did earlier say, no, no, let's keep doing some Q ⁇ As.

Let's give him a chonky one.

He did.

He wanted to chonk it.

That's shocking.

He did not want to get off here.

No, we haven't opened the emails yet.

Here's a question emailed from somebody who goes by Declan.

Who gets to read this inbox?

Do y'all have someone that does it for you and relays the good ones to you?

If so, how can you be sure the best ones reach you?

Huge fan.

Thanks, Declan.

That's a great question.

That's a great emailed question about does the system work?

Just wanted to process it.

the process of the questions.

Declan, I think we made it pretty clear.

You can't trust the system.

That's proof.

Oh, shit.

It's really funny.

I mean, I don't know.

It might speak to a lack of interest about the premise of our actual podcast that the QA is about, like, so who reads these?

Because there seems like there's a disconnect.

Do you print?

Do you print them out or do you just text a PDF?

And is it going to make its way to you?

Here's a question for you, Seth.

Yeah.

I love the Spider-Man comic you wrote with Bill Hayter.

Oh, thank you.

I was wondering if you two had considered writing more comic books in the future.

That's from George.

We haven't.

Oh, well, I should just say we wrote that during the writer's strike.

We had a lot of free time.

And then, you know, life got in the way.

You know how Andy always says life got in the way?

Oh, that's my main thing I say.

They did make Documentary Now together.

We did.

You know what?

We did bigger things.

We moved on from comic books and we made.

Oh, don't talk about comics like that.

Comic books are the biggest thing in the planet.

I don't know if you've noticed, huh?

Yeah.

Look, you don't have to tell me about comics comics.

All right, I'm going to try this again.

Goodbye, everybody.

Not everybody has three little rooms with celebrities in them.

Oh, Seth's done, guys.

Okay, bro.

Why, though?

He probably has three trapped celebrities in his celebrity zoo.

I do.

I have a little celebrity zoo.

I feel like now it's incumbent on one of you guys to end.

All right, Seth, don't go.

You guys, I really haven't eaten dinner.

I love you guys so much, but let's please fucking end this.

All right, I love you.

Peace out.

Love you.

Did everyone else leave?

I stayed.

I stayed in case someone else also stayed.

Just end it, Andy.

You have to do it.

Okay, we're all going to hang up on the count of three.

Love you guys.

Oh, my God.

One, two,

three.

All right, I'm stopping.

Did everyone stop?