Iran So Far Away

Welcome to the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast.

Really good.

Can I just say something?

Yeah.

I'm very excited about this one.

I ran so far, I have not been able to watch this in the last 10 years without getting choked up.

And I actually believe there's a good chance I'll get choked up talking about it.

Oh my God.

This is the season premiere.

It is September 29th, 2007.

The host is LeBron James, who is, anybody want to guess his age?

At that time?

Yeah.

23.

22 years old.

I was just guessing Jersey, Jersey number.

22, he seemed like such a full-grown man compared to us.

Yeah.

The other thing about how young he was, remember he had his whole crew with him.

And those guys are all just sort of titans of showbiz and sports now.

Maverick Carter.

Yeah.

Do you remember Maverick?

Of course.

Yeah, that guy blew up.

Co-host of the shop.

Rich Paul.

Do you remember Rich Paul was there as just his buddy?

And, you know, Rich Paul is now a massive Titan of showbiz.

Anyway, and

dating Adele.

There you go.

That's what we were all hoping you were going to say.

Dish that dirt, baby, from the song.

No one knew about that until just now.

I didn't.

We do break a lot of news here.

Here's a fun thing.

Here are some other people who received MVP votes that year just to speak to the longevity of LeBron James.

Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett.

A lot of these people are just fully in the Hall of Fame now.

Do you remember, Keeve, that you were super excited when we sat down for opening pitch on Monday and you were like, oh my God, what's that Blackberry that LeBron has?

He has like a miniature version of a Blackberry.

He must have a new one.

And then you're like, oh, no, his hands are just bigger.

Yeah.

I can remember where on Lauren's floor I was sitting.

I was right by his knees.

And I I was just staring right at it.

Like, wow.

You were super excited about it.

If I was that gigantic, it would be such a fun pickup line with girls.

Be like, you see the new tiny Blackberry?

Wow.

You're like, it's not.

This is a full Blackberry.

For our younger listeners, a Blackberry was a phone back in the day.

And I believe, I'm going to go on record of saying, I think I might have been the last person to keep a Blackberry.

I loved a Blackberry.

Yeah.

I believe strongly that it was a better phone.

And there was a very good movie last year called Blackberry.

I like Yorm's optimism that we have younger listeners yeah that's sweet i did like about the blackberry that there was a pin it felt like you had like a secret code for your friends and i still have a lot of numbers that still have pins in them oh yeah it was kind of like a whatsapp precursor blackberry messenger yeah in the movie blackberry it is really truly about the blackberry there's a scene where steve jobs is talking about the iphone and the guy who invented the blackberry says it's not gonna work people like keyboards and that literally is what i thought when the iphone launched yes i'm like good luck i still miss the QWERTY pad.

Me and Anthony kept ours.

Yeah, we kept ours a long time.

We didn't switch forever because we liked that tactile QWERTY.

You could also, you could text without looking at your phone really well.

Yeah.

Like you could just have it under a desk and send complete messages because you could feel it and you knew it.

Although I've seen people with iPhones text without looking as well.

Yeah, but it's such a leap of faith.

Yeah.

Like with a QWERTY pad, you know you're hitting the right buttons.

QWERTY.

It turned the whole social scene into a bunch of stenographers, you know?

That was what happened in the social scene.

Stenos, as the crossword would say.

I will say, if we didn't have younger listeners, I do feel like everything we've said so far is going to bring them back in.

Yeah.

This episode is brought to you by Blackberry.

Stenno, or as the kids call them, stenosed.

Seth, weird that you didn't respond whether or not you got Queen Bee clean this morning.

I did not get it clean.

Yes, but I did, though.

And that's why it's interesting to me that you didn't clarify when I asked.

Hey, LeBron James is a full delight.

He was just a genuine, fantastic human being to spend time with in 2007.

It is amazing that he was at the beginning of a career that you couldn't have even conceived.

Also, we didn't know at the time that he would like crush our souls by blocking Iguadala in game seven at the finals.

Right.

That's right.

He would come after your beautiful Golden State Warriors.

We're still cool with.

We're still cool with LeBron, even though he did that.

He was just playing his best game, you know?

Yeah, you know, it's a, I think it's the.

And I think it's great that we all now know for sure that when the game is on the line and they're all on the court, they defer to Steph and he hits a bunch of rainbow threes and he's the best that ever did it.

Wow.

The Bay Area wins again.

Thanks, Bron.

Thanks, Bronny.

He came around.

Yeah.

Keith, back me up.

Yeah, he's talking about the Olympics for our listeners that don't care about sports.

What?

Bunch of young sports nuts.

You didn't tune in into this.

A bunch of teen sports fanatics.

Seth, I'm so sorry I cut you off again, brother.

I promise you I'm going to run out of energy in like five minutes.

We have done some data diving on our listenership, and it's a lot of sports kids who love old tech.

Oh, yeah.

That might be right.

We're going to get to Iran so far.

There's a couple of things I want to talk about before we get there because I have a lot to say about Iran so far.

There was a sketch, Read to Achieve.

Do you remember Read to Achieve?

Hater and Sudakis and LeBron?

I know you're going to be surprised, but no.

Is it they're shooting a commercial and Sudakis is being a boom guy?

Yeah, it was also in the Julie Lee Dreyfus show.

Sudakis is a boom guy who's

He was a boom guy in Julie Lee Dreyfus.

He's a prop guy here.

It's his job to throw basketball to LeBron James from off camera.

And he keeps getting his cue wrong.

And he gets really lippy with LeBron.

Take time.

Hey, quick.

Hey, man, that's a little early.

Okay, cotton, cotton, cot, cot, cot, cot.

Jeff.

Gotta wait for that cue, buddy.

Yeah, sorry about that, Mike.

My mind must be elsewhere.

You know, I just bought a new sweater.

Jeff.

I get it.

Just focus up on this one.

Yeah, I hear you, Mike.

I guess I thought an NBA player would be a little quicker.

That's all.

I wasn't even looking.

Yeah, whatever excuse works for you, man.

It's not an excuse.

Hey, look, dude.

I played high school ball.

Point guard.

Showing Miss West Vikings.

Very funny sketch.

Two things I remember is one, Bill is the director, and Sudakis is the prop guy who is very frustrating to work with.

And in both sketches, Jason at some point says, I got good ideas, too.

And that is a thing the shoemaker and I still say to each other all the time.

The other thing is at the very end of the sketch, because there was a basketball and a hoop, as it was pulling out, I remember Sudakis took the ball and dribbled and actually did a reverse layup while LeBron was trying to block him.

And it wasn't part of the sketch, it was just as it was pulling out.

And I do think it was an incredible athletic achievement by Suds.

And Suds got the ball in.

He got the ball in.

And then you can see the shock on Suds's face as well.

Yes.

He's a little bit better at basketball than LeBron gave him credit for.

Well, he played, didn't he played like Division II or something?

Yeah.

And I think he waited like a cat, waited until his moment yes there was a stretch of time years past this lebron moment for suds but where we would did you ever come seth writers and casts we would rent out this like school gym late at night once a week and go play basketball and sudeikis was clearly very good because he had played for real growing up and was the reigning threes i remember the night i played the gap from how good sudakis was to how good the rest of us was was such that if we had played to 11 it would take hours But do you remember how I closed that gap?

How did you close it?

Fouling.

Made up a rule where there is a spot in the corner of the halfway line of the court.

And if you made that shot, it was a 10-pointer.

Did you make it?

So it would always be, we'd be losing by a ton.

And then everyone would just go, go for it, go for the 10-pointer.

Start chucking them.

And inevitably, after like five or six, one would go in.

And we go, yeah, fucking freak out.

And the people who had been much better would be really mad because they were like, this is a stupid rule.

It's like what my son would do as a rule.

It was like if there was a movie about SNL, what you would write that they did because it was like a goofy thing.

But we really did it.

And it was funny.

And it would make us laugh so hard.

Well, you were always very inventive.

You were a problem solver.

Thanks for saying that.

Would you say it was your base skip all moment?

Would you say that?

I feel like I'm not allowed to say no.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

There is another sketch.

Joram, will you sing us into a Seth's corner, but can you add that it's also Akiva's corner?

Ooh, this is an early Seth Corner.

This is a special Seth Corner because it involves Akiva.

Take it away, guys.

Do you remember the sketch we wrote for Kanye this week?

Oh, we skipped the fact that Kanye is the musical guest.

Right.

In general, can we just agree with our listeners that we're going to speak freely from that time period and just kind of ignore every Kanye thing that happened after this?

Yeah.

And the fact that in 2007, it was so fucking rad that Kanye was there.

Yeah.

What was he singing, though?

Was this after fuck SNL?

No.

No, this is pre-that.

He did Stronger/slash Good Life Combined and then Champion slash IMs.

Oh, got it.

This is around when we like went and saw him at the GQ party and shit, right, Keith?

Yes.

And we saw him do like a private show.

It was dope.

And he had the big band with him and everything, and it was dope.

There's no denying at this moment, he is the dopest one out there doing stuff.

I saw him in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention.

I went out to Denver, Colorado, and he just played a party later that night just at a small bar.

And I remember it was the first time I heard that song, Lights.

Wait, he was at the DNC?

He was at the DNC just doing, yeah, doing a gig.

So, Seth, why were you there?

Why was I there?

Oh, this is, I get a great reason that I was there.

I really do.

It's the best.

Do tell.

Lorne is very close friends with Chris Dodd.

Chris Dodd will later appear in an episode of Laser Cats.

Laser Cats.

Chris Dodd was a Connecticut senator.

He ran for president in 2008.

He, for those of you who are only learning about history from this podcast, does not win.

Lauren said, hey, Chris Dodd is doing a party at the DNC.

I think you should fly out, host it, do 15 minutes of stand-up at the beginning, and I think that'd be really fun.

And you'd get to go to the DNC.

Yeah.

So I did that.

And I went out and I did a show for Chris Dodd supporters at Coorsfield.

But I remember afterwards, I went to a DNC event with like a bunch of actors.

And it was pre,

maybe, I guess probably pre-hangover Bradley Cooper, right?

Bradley Cooper, Adina Menzel, Tay Diggs, and some other people.

And the one thing I remember, there was all this security, obviously, to get into the DNC.

And there were just like all these gates where you had to go through and then another gate where you had to go through.

And then one point at Dean and Menzel goes, oh, I think, I think we left Tay behind.

And she said this to our guide.

And he was like, all right, that's a huge problem.

Cause if he doesn't have his credentials, like, I don't know what we're going to do.

There's no way he's getting through.

And then all of a sudden, Tay Diggs walked up.

And he was like, how'd you get through?

And he was like, I was a black security guard.

Okay.

And he just, and he goes, yeah, he just is like, oh, Tay Diggs.

I thought it was going to end with just like, he's hella famous.

No, no, but it was like, I liked that.

He made it clear.

It was like, yeah,

come on.

Yeah.

That's like if it was like a bunch of young sports nuts who liked old technology were working the door and you show up.

We've lost the plot a little bit because Kanye West was on the show and Akiva had an idea for Kanye West.

Yes.

The timeline of this is crazy, though, because I can't even remember, because it's really hard to remember why we had this idea, but it had to do with maybe Britney Spears.

I can't, I honestly can't remember.

But he was a little bit famous for bad award show behavior, for being either a poor loser or speaking out on behalf of others.

But the Taylor Swift famous moment you are thinking I'm talking about has not happened yet.

It has not happened.

That happens a year from now.

But it was already known enough that he had bad behavior at award shows that we talked to him.

I think it was partially his idea.

He said, I should make fun of award show stuff.

And then I was like, oh, that makes perfect sense.

And because we knew that world, Lauren asked me to get on the phone with him.

And then Seth, as head writer, was like, yeah, yeah, of course, I'll get on with you.

I think I asked you or I made sure you would.

So me and you called Kanye and he kind of pitched it, and then me and you wrote out a big award show thing.

Do you want to say what the sketch was now, Seth?

Basically, I was just him interrupting

different award shows that he would even have less chance of winning, which culminated in him losing at a state fair for Best Pumpkin.

And it was basically him walking on stage and saying, I have the best pumpkin of all time, like ripping it out of a kid's hand.

And the blue ribbon for Best Pumpkin goes to Little Abigail Winters.

And how old are you, Abigail?

I'm eight years old.

Oh, hell no.

Hell no.

I got the best pumpkin.

This pumpkin costs a million dollars, fam.

It got champagne in it.

I'm a loose to it.

Hey, yo, you got a lot of years.

You got a lot of years.

You can win this.

I've been doing this too long, fam.

I've been doing this too long.

And then, I'm getting ahead of us, Taylor Lautner, who was dating Taylor Swift at the time of that, correct?

Yeah, yeah, it might have been at that show.

I don't know.

Because he then, when he hosted SNL, he karate kicked a cardboard cutout of Kanye West.

And then that's why in power.

He says, fuck SNL in the whole.

Fuck SNL in the whole cast.

Yes, because they like essentially burned an effigy of him because it was just letting Taylor Lautner take revenge.

Yeah.

But yeah, I remember thinking at the VMAs live, oh, this is so funny, but he's kind of ripping off our bit.

I wish he had called us to like help us work on this.

Could have been better.

Could have been funnier.

And I was like, but it's really his bit.

I like went through the whole process of like, but it's really his bit because he's the one that called and said, i'd like to do something about that we just cracked the code on what the actual sketch would be and you know that's fine and then midway through i was like oh my god wait no this is just happening but it was so weird because he does like six times in the thing we did and we shot it like over and over so he had it down pat hold on the the reason that kanye did the fuck s and l in the whole cast was because taylor kicked of i assume so we hadn't because when it happened we went back and we're like we i don't feel like we've ever joked down kanye and And then I think that was.

Oh, wow.

That's a way lamer reason than I thought it was going to be.

I thought we had done some cutting barb or something.

I'm going to use that.

We're talking about Kanye as the segue into the short, if you would.

That's about what I was going to do the same because there was another phone call.

Well, Adam Levine was in a really good Kanye song called Heard Him Say.

And we knew Maroon 5, but hadn't thought much about him.

And when he came on that Heard Him Say, we were like, damn, that's really cool.

And that's why we thought to call Adam Levine for I ran so far.

Correct.

Jimmy and I were on stage when Beyonce invited Taylor back.

You found it?

I can see us in the shadows off right off screen, being like, this is crazy.

Yeah.

You guys had this idea way earlier in the week than normal.

Yeah.

By the way, Keeve, and then Kanye returned the favor by using the Apex twin sample on his app.

Yes.

Well, if we want to just round out the Kanye thing, I have a few others.

So the second thing I would say that was interesting is while we're filming it, jumping ahead into the middle of the video, you see Andy in a very cool leather jacket with a scarf ensemble with a striped shirt.

And Andy did look really cool, but we had gone to wardrobe being like, Hey, make Andy dress like one of those guys who thinks he's really handsome and cool in a way that we are too self-conscious to ever dress like.

So they put him in that ensemble.

Then we're hanging out on eight in the hallway.

And we had been shooting all morning, but Andy had to come block something.

So we're just, you know, in the middle of wasting time before heading back out.

And Andy's in that outfit.

And Kanye, I remember really clearly, was hanging out in that same spot with us.

And basically, he was like, damn, you're the only one here that knows how to dress.

handy a really nice compliment do you remember the whole full of it no go ahead and he went yo you look dope like something like that like that outfit is good and i was like oh thanks and he was like but it's a joke

she like put it together in the moment like oh

you're wearing it as a bit he figured it out within two seconds of complimenting oh that's so good but he also knew like hey we were doing a song that week right because we did ask if he wanted to do a verse not only did you ask him if you wanted to do a verse this is one of of my favorite phone calls that I was ever on at SNL.

Oh my God, I don't remember it.

Go ahead.

Well, you weren't on it.

You had the idea early in the week.

So Mahmoud Ahmadidashad had spoken at the UN and it was big news.

And I think it was early in the week, but you know, he, the Holocaust denier, says there's no homosexuals in around, like, just so you'd really hateful rhetoric.

And you guys had this idea early enough in the week that Lauren called Kanye before he was there, so Tuesday, Wednesday, wanted me on the phone to explain the idea.

And would he want to do it.

And so I basically was tasked with, it's this really funny song.

Andy's singing about how he has a romantic longing for Mahmoud Ahmadijan.

And then Lauren, who is, he's the best dry, funny person I've ever met in my life.

And maybe said my favorite dry joke ever, which is, we said, and you know, I think you do it.

And, you know, worst case, they just issue a fatwa against you.

And then there was the longest pause.

And then Kanye said, Well, then I don't want to do it.

That's the most appropriate answer after that.

Oh, my God.

Okay, no.

Well, also, it was explaining the idea without the music or the look.

It's not your, you know, the funniest idea you guys have ever had.

Well, by the way, before he came and spoke, we loved Akmandita John.

So it was heartbreaking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He really pulled the rug out from it.

You had to like, you were tearing up scripts.

You were like, well, the way we wrote it will work now.

We were in the fifth row.

We were in the fifth row at the UN, and we thought he was doing a bit.

I love it so much.

Can I say something, though?

Yeah.

Seth, was it partly your idea, though, or entirely?

I don't know.

I know one thing for sure, which was you coming and saying, just promise me, if you do it, you'll do a line.

about Iran says they don't have the bomb, but they do.

It's you.

That line was your idea.

What a lovely thing to be told years later.

You have no memory of that?

I have no memory of that.

It's the last line of the song.

No, I have other lines I like more than that one.

I didn't say best.

I said last.

That's a good line.

All right, Seth, to finish your thought, though, get back to the blame game because that was the thing to round out the Kanye story.

What do you mean, the blame game?

Well, he said no to being on the song.

And then, by the way, after it aired on stage after, he was very nice during Good Nights and was like, that was really good.

I'm still glad I didn't do it, though.

And then.

Honestly, it's why we love that guy at that time.

He's fantastic.

I love that statement.

That is so great.

Oh, we thought it was so funny.

And then a couple of years later, Eddie put out his most liked album, arguably, and sampled it on Blame Game.

Sample Day Festival.

Yeah, Blame Game is the exact same basic beat of Iran So Far.

I felt very proud of that because I made that beat.

And granted, it's a very simple beat that's mostly just using a sample.

But I was like, oh, I think I influenced Kanye.

I should say you.

By the way.

Sorry.

No, go ahead.

We have a whole other wing of this to talk about, which is that we didn't clear the sample.

That's where I was going.

We were together.

I loved it right as Yorma saying, I'm so proud of myself.

It was a very newsworthy short.

Well, I wasn't proud of this part.

Yeah, Apex Twin, who was super cool, was like, no one, no one contacted me, right?

Yeah, we did not contact because they hadn't been doing anything with the shorts, really.

Like, this was the first digital short that then NBC tried to sell on iTunes.

And then the moment we saw that, I was like, oh, no, you can't, we didn't clear that sample.

And to be fair, I talked to our friend, Brian Burton, Danger Mouse, before, who had made stuff on the same label as Apex.

And he, I shouldn't have listened to Brian because one of the main things he was famous for at the time was stealing samples from the Beatles and just using them on an album.

And he was like, it's fine.

Just, it doesn't matter.

You're like, just do it.

It won't matter.

And then it very much mattered and it became a huge thing.

And NBC came back to us and was like, wait a minute, that's a sample.

And I I was like, oh, yeah, sorry.

And then I did try to track him down earlier, though.

Like, I tried to get his number.

I emailed with him and he was cool.

He was just hard to find.

But we did contact him and he was very nice about it.

But then it cost NBC, I think, $160,000.

We can talk about numbers on the show, right?

Well, I think, and it's still not easy to find online.

And that's the reason, right?

That is the reason, which is a bummer.

Yeah, they cleared it basically.

It was different buckets for online versus televised replays.

So it does break my heart that we are going to talk about a digital short that finished second overall when the cast and writers voted on the favorite of all time.

And it's not readily available.

I think it is now.

I think they did clear it.

No, it's here.

Okay, good.

It's on YouTube now.

But it's harder for us to clear.

It's definitely still a slight issue for things.

I should say there's also, this is just for young people who are thinking about putting songs in sketches.

You definitely want to make a deal with the person who has the publishing before you've put it online.

Because

that is, you have given all the leverage to the person who owns the publishing.

But it was, it was, the amount I heard people muttering about that number was, it was a long tale.

The other bummer about it was that then after that, every single short that had a snippet of music, they were down our throats on.

I was like, wait a minute.

And I was like, oh, shit.

I also think, I'm pretty sure we knew about that song, Avril 14th, because it was in Marie Antoinette, right?

I don't think so.

Was it at that time?

I'm almost positive that's why everyone all of a sudden knew it.

I knew it from before just because I was an Apex Twin fan, and it's such a surprising track on that album.

I'm just like, oh my god, this is not what you expect from it.

But you don't think Marie Antoinette that came out in 2006 had anything to do with that?

No, because I had that album way earlier.

Like, how much win?

Prove it.

I think I had it.

See what year it came out?

You know, who didn't get that album early?

Anyone in NBC Legal?

The fact that they were like, wait, that's a song?

Yeah, why couldn't Yorm have written that?

Yeah.

That beautiful, beautiful melody.

Can we talk about what a champ Adam Levine was to, he was in Detroit on tour, I believe.

He had one day off between massive Maroon 5 shows in two different cities, played a show, flew to New York, came to our office and recorded his vocals that night, right?

Yeah.

It must have been.

And then we woke up at like six or seven in the morning and shot him out through the entirety of the morning, all his stuff.

And he flew to the next city and played a show that night.

He came through for us in a major way.

It was awesome.

Major way.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

So now, if we can, because there's so much, we haven't even scratched the surface of everything in this song.

But I've just sort of written down my notes from the beginning and how much I love this song.

First of all, let me just say, late September, New York City, it is my favorite time and place in the world.

Oh, things are getting sweet now.

This is like this.

Yeah.

It starts, you're at a piano.

First of all, let me say, all jokes aside, Andy, you look fucking great in this video.

Tanya was right.

You are so you look so handsome.

And I'm mentioning this because in like two weeks, you're in Andy punching people before they eat food.

And you look like 15 years younger than you do in this.

Like you look so like just mature and handy.

It's amazing.

So right off the bat, the audience has no idea what to make of it because this is not a big wet comedy premise.

This takes so long to figure out what is going on.

And totally, it's very different off the bat.

It is so, it never winks once.

It is earnest the whole way through.

It is beautiful.

There's one wink.

There's one wink.

And it was Keeves cut.

And I love it.

It's the insert of the floppy hand on the piano.

Yeah, the classic piano floppy.

Oh, I don't.

I think I missed it.

Oh, it's just like a floppy hand.

And I re-watched it for this, and it did just like a bomb with the hand on the piano, like deep into the song, too.

Deep into the song.

So we've really earned it.

Yeah.

It sticks out.

Yeah.

But it does make me laugh every time where I'm just like, oh, that was such a good idea.

Yes, that is a wink, technically.

Yeah.

So there is sort of early on, you do a very nice move.

A couple of times you show the real Aknadashan, which is a nice sort of teachable moment for people who maybe, younger people, maybe who don't know him, right?

Fred is so good in this sketch.

He's so good.

The way he just has those like heavy lids.

The least hammy performance you could possibly see in a comedy sketch.

Because Because he's not even being earnest.

He's just sort of like, I don't know.

He's a vessel.

He's a vessel.

He also really looks like him.

He really looks like him.

He's open and curious and just kind of, you get a sense of warmth.

You believe he is an object of love.

Yeah, completely.

Yeah.

Why you would fall for this guy.

That beautiful first shot is that incredible roof garden on 30 Rock.

Just gorgeous, right?

Full bloom.

And he had a piano, looking great.

Then we're at the stoop, the West Village stoop that becomes sort of a home for a lot of other shorts.

Back to the well.

Commerce.

Cherry Lab.

Yeah.

Great day.

Yeah.

Just the most beautiful little like L-shaped corner of the West Village.

One of my favorite streets in New York.

It's the best.

And so right away, I'm just having like deep-seated nostalgia.

And then there's so many lyrics that stay with me for so long.

I remember when it started, saw you on the news.

You were hating gays.

I was eating food.

From opposite ends of the earth, my heart tells me you're the one for me.

Mach mood.

I remember when it started, saw you on the news.

You were hating gays.

I was eating flu, but I was feeling you.

And even though I disagreed with almost everything you said, you ain't wrong to me.

So strong to me, you belong to me.

Like a very hairy Jake Jillen hall to me.

It's such a bad rhyme.

And again, the audience has no idea what's going on.

Fred is sitting next to you reading.

Do you remember what book he was reading, Keeve?

No.

I had to pause it when we re-watched it.

Hindus.

Emily Dickinson, I believe.

Emily Dickinson.

And it's just a love song.

Andy is singing a love song to this hateful, hateful man.

So strong to me, you belong to me.

Like a very hairy Jake Gyllenha to me.

Side-by-side photos of Jake Gyllenhaal and Mach My Dude.

And they'll laugh now, right?

I sort of feel like that's the first sort of comedy choice.

That's the first break moment to let the audience relax.

Yeah.

I appreciated how short that clip was when I watched it.

I was like, oh, it's just long enough for you to understand.

They look the same.

Tiny pop.

There's an incredible amount of respect for the audience in this sketch.

There's no racing.

There's no, you're just not doing anything to help them find what's beautiful about this thing.

Then the introduction of, hey, yo, Adam, let's ride.

And now we're on the West Side Highway, right?

That's where you guys must be.

I think we're on a roof.

I think we're on a roof.

In Brooklyn.

Roof in Brooklyn.

Oh, right.

New York's behind you, right?

Yeah.

And then there's this really beautiful shot where Andy sort of turns and Adam is sort of back-to-back behind him and comes around and starts singing.

And again, just one of the greatest voices of the last 25 years.

And Andy's singing is really good, but now the song all of a sudden just gets even better.

And again, it's not winking at all.

And Adam doesn't have, there's no funny lines.

It's just deeply funny that it's Adam.

Right.

And he's so committed to it.

I remember when the Steady Cam guy, because you kind of just let them loose, like, hey, it's music video mode.

Just spin around them a little.

And I remember when that moment happened, like, looking and like, oh, yeah, it's all there.

Yeah.

Like, because you try to be like, we want to be on a roof, we want to be able to see New York.

We want to be, but a lot of times it doesn't come together.

And I'm looking at the shot now, and just the fact that New York, the camera spins around and it never loses New York the whole time.

And the way he reveals, it's one of those rare moments where everything does actually come together.

There's another study shot, too, that's amazing that reveals it's the clouds behind Adam and the sound that's hiding him.

And it's genuinely beautiful and romantic.

You mentioned that Adam was such a hero to fly in and do this.

How did you pitch it to him?

Do you have any memory of that?

I don't.

I can't remember.

I mean, he was pretty game.

And you hadn't met him, right?

So when he shows up, he shows up to your office?

Yes.

He showed up to our office.

I can't remember if Andy had met him in passing at some point.

I feel like we have a clue that we were like, oh, he told us he likes our stuff.

Like, did we have a hint that this was going to work?

I feel like that was more the reason, though.

Like, we usually hit up people that we were like, maybe he'll be game.

I will say, he was always a guy if you saw in the world.

He was always incredibly complimentary about the show.

And I feel like was always to some degree, if you ever need anything.

So, I wouldn't be surprised.

And then he continued to do that for us forever for Popstar Andrew.

Yeah, we made the song YOLO, and he was in Popstar on I'm So Humble.

I also want to say something, which is a real credit to somebody like Adam.

I feel like he obviously loves comedy, and sometimes the funniest thing he can do is is exactly what he would do on a good song.

And he understands that's the funny move, as opposed to sometimes people are like, I want to really ham it up.

I feel like that's true of all of the really talented singers we've worked with.

They understand the game.

I mean, the ones that have really worked well, it's that where they're like, the better this sounds, the funnier it'll be, which has always been our M.O.

Right.

So, again, the audience is very excited to see Adam.

And now, I would, again, you were hating gays, I was eating food is a terrible, it's just terrible.

But he ran for the president of Iran.

We ran together to a tropical island.

Yeah.

That's like fun now.

That's like good.

That's got to be an Andy.

Yeah, that's really good.

That all around was one thing.

Rhymes within rhymes.

It keeps going, too.

Yes, there's more to that.

Then it cuts to maybe not quite because my favorite's coming, but my favorite.

No, it is.

It's the same thing.

Andy on a bus or something.

What is he on?

A flatbed truck?

Flatbed.

Flatbed truck.

Yeah.

Andy's on a flatbed truck playing piano.

Like Vanessa Carlton, I believe.

Yes.

And there's now a shot of you going over a bridge.

And there is a laugh that I think can only be described as they're laughing at the audacity.

Yeah.

They can't believe what you have done.

But it makes me like the joy I feel now at that release of the audience realizing who you guys were and what you were willing to do and how great it looked.

It's late in the video and it's also pretty respectfully

a very short shot.

Like that you're just like, wow, they're there too.

Okay.

Also, a quick note from Kevin, Maroon 5 had been the musical guest the previous season, finale with Zach Brown.

So they were actually on the last episode.

So I'm sure at that point.

That's the big.

And you know what?

We probably all hung out.

Yeah.

I'm having a memory now and him being like, yo, hit me up.

Yeah.

To your point about it looking good and the audacity, this is kind of the first one where we've even attempted that, I guess.

I was about to say the same thing.

I hadn't really thought about that when I was watching it, but now where we went, hey, let's try to make this look amazing.

And we hadn't gone to outside DPS yet.

That switched at Jizz in My Pants when we had the record label.

But we did get a steady cam.

Maybe we hadn't done that before.

And we asked for things like Brooklyn rooftops and flatbed trucks.

And we asked for more than we felt entitled to before.

Yes.

The goal and the treatment was to make it look cooler cooler and like a real video and knowing that the more we leaned into it looking legit and having the lyrics be so stupid.

I do remember the feeling of being on that flatbed truck though and feeling like, this seems special.

Like what we're doing right now seems special.

Also when we got to Times Square.

I just remember thinking, I can't believe they're letting us do it.

Like in a fun way where I was like, I can't fucking believe I'm doing this right now.

It's so fun.

Yeah, because we were just tethered to it with like little

strapped onto the back of it.

I remember us looking at each other and laughing and being like, I can't believe they gave it to us.

Because it's also such a fun way to go across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Oh my God, it was so dope.

You're just sitting out in the open with the breeze going by, seeing all those views.

Well, and then into Times Square where you're like, holy shit.

People were driving by in cabs and in their cars and like waving at us.

And we were like waving at people and we were like out in New York.

It felt so like we love New York and everyone was giving us good.

energy.

It was really fun.

There's also that thing of, I feel like there's always an expectation, which is totally fair that an audience has, which is, oh, season premiere, this is going to be the best one because they have all summer to think about stuff, which is 100% not the case.

Nothing you think about over the course of the summer is actually good.

Come the first show.

But this felt like, because you'd never done anything like it before, it felt like what should be logically in a season premiere.

Well, you know what else it was?

Twofold.

One, it was we were finally free of hot rod.

Yes.

Right.

Just schedule-wise, emotionally and mentally.

And I love hot rod.

I'm not saying like we were imprisoned by it or something.

I think everyone will understand it by everything we've said up till this time.

No, but it had a huge summer.

It was a massive blockbuster.

We were doing in, you know,

yes.

But to what Jorm is saying, but the opposite, it was also, we were like, we want to make a good one.

Yeah, yeah.

And we had singular focus.

We were not spread too thin.

And I will also say, and it's the beauty of SNL, and it's the thing Lauren says a lot about a career.

He'll always be like, it's good to have a home, no matter what you do with your career.

Yeah.

Having SNL as our home, even though the movie didn't perform well, we came back and then first show we did that.

And it was like we got a whole new lease on life in our minds, of course, and everywhere.

I mean, I think anybody who saw that would immediately, whatever ideas they have, they would just like, oh no, we don't want to work with those guys.

Uh, you can play the Jews, I could be your Jim Caviezel.

Yeah, Adam Levine sings Cavizel with you super high, which gets again a laugh on just the quality,

the quality of his voice yeah

and i do like when andy mentions that because in all of our mock-ups it will be andy doing those so he's oh yeah we had a funny one on this with levine because i did the temp yeah and this was like back when as mentioned i had never even tried to sing well or knew how or anything about it and he listened to it and it was like

Like I was doing like a shitty impression of him.

Stop that, bud.

Almost to make these guys laugh.

And then he listened to it and he was like, Is that what I sound like?

And I was like, Dude, no, it's no, no offense, no offense, dude.

We were definitely applying the things we had learned from Timberlake on this to do our best to make his vocals be spread out and have layers.

And yes, we tried our best to produce it.

But I do sometimes look at this and go, Man, if it was a year later, we would have had real mixers mix it.

Yeah, it would sound 10 times better, even for sure.

Um, I got a runner-up for my second favorite.

This is my runner-up for favorite lyrics.

With your sleepy brown eyes, butterbecamp eyes, and you hear me butt.

Yeah.

That's a Yorma Taconi line.

Yeah.

And then there's a nice like gap where you think there's room for more, but it's just that.

Yeah.

It's a period at the end of the sentence.

Yeah.

That's a very Yorm line.

And I remember him pitching it and us all laughing really hard and going, yep.

Recording it and then being like, yep, we like that.

I will say it's similar to whatever one we were talking about last week week or a week before where we said this one felt easy.

This one felt easy and blessed the whole way through too.

Yeah.

Like it was a lot of work, but it never felt

badwood.

Maybe it's to Seth's point that we had it early in the week.

So it was never rushed.

Yeah.

I think that's what it was.

Cause the beat was easy to make.

Like everything was flowing.

It was fun to write.

You can't get roof truck outfits last minute.

Correct.

Right.

So part of it is, I think this is you guys now, because again, the next one we do, which I also love, which is punching people before they eat.

Like it's a parallel track, but it kind of of goes back to the old way, which people are super down for.

But like you learned another thing, which is like, oh, if we come up with it a little bit earlier.

Right, yes, yes.

Then we cut back and now Fred is in a dress on the piano, like fabulous Baker Boy style.

Yes.

Huge laugh.

And again, nothing, not a different face.

Fred's face is so consistent.

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This is maybe my favorite line you guys ever wrote.

I think about it all the time.

I've been on multiple field trips with my children where it is just playing on a loop in my head.

We can take a trip to the animal zoo and laugh at all the the funny things the animals do.

Like Eugene, you got me.

I do, I do love that.

It's so funny to me to think that if this is a real singer making a real album, how is that line okay?

Well, because yeah,

there's no such phrase as animal zoo.

It's just clearly teeing up animals, damn.

And this guy just likes funny things.

Oh, look at that funny animal.

It's also just in a song about like the idea of a love song with this being one of the promises to someone with whom you have affection.

But even just the littlest thing Fred does during that of like pointing at a butterfly is so delightful.

Yeah.

We got kind of lucky with that too because I remember we were just like walking by a park and we're like, I guess this could be a zoo.

We ducked in.

Yeah, I was in the West Village.

I also will say I really enjoyed in the rewatch the fact that we name Check Eugene Levy, but just say his first name, like as if it's understood.

Yeah, like Eugene.

Yeah, yeah, like Eugene.

Like we all know.

It's his quote from Bringing Down the House, I believe.

Natch.

Yeah, 100%.

I wrote down just a list of just physical things Fred does in this sketch to kill me.

Okay, great.

Eating ice cream, the way he dances, the way he smiles, the way he touches a leaf, the way he smells a flower.

And then maybe my favorite is you guys are watching and he takes a branch.

and just kind of like jostles it in Andy's face.

It's the flirtiest little, and Andy's like, cut it out.

It's amazing.

Love of a guy.

Now, as again, I'll say it every fucking one of these podcasts.

Every time you think there's no heighten, all of a sudden there's just a choir of children.

That's Yorm's favorite thing.

He pitches it on every other song.

I pitch that on everything.

Any song that has a heighten.

Andy's is, let's go up and octave, and mine is, let's add some kids.

Great.

A semi-tone.

They're walking down.

They're literally, I have so much extra respect for Adam Levine now, knowing he was like walking down a New York street with a bunch of kids, knowing he had to get on a plane and go do a show.

And I do think that was the last shot he did.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

But Keith, thanks for correcting Norman saying it was a semitone and not an octave.

Yeah, it's

like a half step, not an octave.

And octave's insane.

We're not dumb.

Yeah.

There's a Tootsie shot that I was really impressed with, too, that I was like, man.

And I wonder if it's because when we got the steady cam, they were like, oh, then we should get a better camera too.

Because I don't think we had like a DP lighting.

We're just outside.

But it feels like it had a better lens because this Tootsie long lens shot, you know, the classic.

It does feel like it's shot way better overall.

What do you mean by a Tootsie shot?

There's a classic shot from Tootsie that's really like in the Tarantino movies when they show the little Tootsies up against the windshield.

Oh, yeah, the little Tootsie shot.

Tootsie walking in a crowd.

Oh, that Tootsie shot, right?

Where he's just in the middle of a crowd.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's super long lens.

We did a Tootsie shot in Hero Song later, also.

Yeah.

We got Gyllenhaal to give us a real shot.

He was doing press in LA.

I remember because you can tell he's doing like a press day.

That came in late.

I remember you guys saying it came in late, the gyl and haul.

I want to say we shared a publicist at the time.

Yeah, Carrie, Carrie hooked it up.

We texted her being like, Is there any way?

She's like, Oh my God, we're in a room with cameras.

I bet we can grab that.

Yeah.

Like, what should he do?

And we're like, oh, just like look at the lens and mess with his beard.

And he just sent the perfect little snip.

Couldn't have done it better.

Because he does it, he messes with the beard and then does more.

He does like a little, he flashes like a finger sign.

He throws off some deuces.

And again, you don't overstay your welcome.

You guys are not asking for applause.

Promoting rendition is my guest.

Rendition came out two weeks later.

The film.

Yeah.

And by the way, I mean, we've done Laser Cats together with Julie Fish, so it's all love.

He was on board.

Yeah, yeah.

He got what we were about.

He was like, oh, yeah, more of this.

Look, he'd done Laser Cats.

Maroon 5 had been on the dog show.

The sketch dog show?

No, the Braff show where you made out with the dog.

Oh, oh, oh, the one we're all trying to forget.

But everybody calls it now.

That was the dog show.

But I was going to say, because you remember the sketch dog show.

Yeah, I do.

Which was very fun.

all right i'll just say it i'll try not to get emotional my favorite shot in the history of snl is you and times square saying i know you say there are no gays in iran but you're in new york now baby and the whole audience applauds it's like literally my favorite moment in the history of the show yeah every time even you saying it the hairs on the back of my neck go up because i do remember feeling genuinely proud that because we never said anything in any of our shorts ever like they weren't ever about anything also

and i realize why it hits me the way it hits me, is it was the moment I knew something.

You know what I knew?

What's that?

It was Anne Golden Era.

Yeah.

Oh, you slow.

There it is.

I love it.

It never, it fucking never doesn't get me.

And the thing I was thinking about today, what's so wonderful about it, because there's not a, there's not a patina of meanness in the entire thing because it never wings.

It just sort of is this beautiful song to this man.

And if he'd ever seen it, it, that regressive-minded, dead-eyed motherfucker would have been like, what?

Like, I just think about somebody showing it to him and him being so fucking confused as to what it was.

Because if it had just been an attack, he would have been like, oh, the Western, Western media, you know, just, but this, I feel like he couldn't even respond.

He would just.

On that same tip, I remember I was listening to a podcast years later that was about kids who were alternatively minded minded kids in Iran who were Iran, I'll pronounce it correctly, who were talking about how Western videos occasionally would make them feel really empowered when they would be making fun of leaders.

And they mentioned that video meaning a lot to them.

And I remember just being like, oh my God, it got to people.

It really made me proud.

I was very excited about that.

Yeah, I also think tonally, it had to be that for us to be the ones doing it because we're not super like, yeah, you know, we don't know the ins and outs of any of that shit.

We were just like, that dude's a homophobe, fuck him.

Let's just do this beautiful song.

And it was right because you didn't have to know much.

You were just like, this guy's saying homophobic shit.

This guy's saying anti-Semitic shit.

And we don't have to like dig down.

We just have to, like, it was like watching somebody very slowly stab a person.

And I guess also, Seth, what I'm saying is, like, before you give us too much credit, I wouldn't have known how to do any other version is what I'm saying.

Like,

we didn't know heads or tails of it other than it was a big news story that week and he was saying horrible things.

100%.

I would just say that for me, it was just the joy of having you guys around because then you would do a thing.

It may be true that you couldn't have done it any other way, but certainly nobody who ever worked there before you would have done it that way.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Keith, I was just looking at YouTube and my favorite comment was, and now I've lost it, but basically, I can't wait for the podcast to cover this one.

Oh, there you go.

You've come full circle.

Well, here you are.

Shoemaker told me a story today that I didn't remember.

Also, Shoemaker had worked at Fallon when we were voting for the best short ever, and he is very upset because he claims if he was there, this would have won.

He really does feel like this is the best of all time.

Well, by the way, Seth, what did you vote for?

Because all three of us, I remember I didn't vote in every round, but all three of us voted in this round, and all three of us voted for Iran Sophar.

I also voted for Iran Sophar.

Also, Shoemaker said in front of me and Polar, this song always makes me really emotional.

And Polar's like, what?

What's wrong with you?

And then she walked away and I said to him, it makes me really emotional, too.

And he goes, why didn't you say anything in front of Polar?

I was like, I don't know, man.

Because I want her to respect me.

She's pretty funny.

Can I ask a question, Seth?

Yeah.

Are you drinking like a Manhattan?

I'm drinking a Negroni.

Ah, and are you at your office right now?

I am.

We've just finished the show, and I was like, you finished taping, and you get a little Negroni.

You're also bit wonderfully, Seth.

Thanks.

Are you in stage makeup?

I think I took my stage makeup off, but thank you for calling it.

Well, you look great.

I also think, Seth, your sense of humor is just lit.

Thanks, buddy.

Oh, yeah.

That's a great way to put it.

I'm glad it's available to watch because I was looking forward to this episode.

We're coming to the end of it, but you and Fred are so great.

The music's so great.

You know, obviously, we did have to let a lot of staff go based on the money Jorm paid for the song.

Sorry.

A lot of them had families, and that's, you know, that's not the best part of this story.

Yeah, no, I apologize.

Wait, but can we talk a little bit?

Jorm, you had direct contact with Aphex Twin.

Yeah.

Can you just talk about how it went down a little bit?

He was super cool about it.

I want to make that clear.

He was 100% super cool.

It was just that the conversation just needed to have happened earlier.

Before it aired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it was really happening after the fact.

I think it also, you could chalk it up to like growing pains for us

of not understanding how much of a platform we even really had.

I also just didn't expect them to sell shorts.

Like they were selling this one on iTunes.

And I was like, oh, whoa, I didn't know that was a possibility.

Also, let me just say the most important thing.

Fucking worth every penny.

Yeah.

And so I know, because at the time, everybody was made to feel bad about how much it cost.

I feel like it almost took like six months before it shook out where you could talk about having liked it without somebody being like, oh, well tell that to the accountants yeah right that's true i like especially thinking about all of them being mad at yorm specifically yeah i learned my lesson yeah they liked having a face to it yeah they liked putting your name wait so yorm you're not going to say like a single word about the fact that you were like on the phone with aphex no no i did like i mean no he was great dude it was just i felt i felt more impressed that i could even have tracked him down because everyone was like oh he's like a genius is out in the woods and it's like really hard to get to him and so it took like a bunch of finagling.

Can we talk about Forte's sketch, the talk show?

Lyle Kane talked about.

Yeah, Lyle Kane.

I don't remember much about Lyle Kane, except it was a.

Oh, it was, well, it was basically who he played in the prom sketch we talked about in the Zach Braff show.

But you know what?

Hi there, right?

Yeah, hi there.

Hi there.

Hi there.

Hi, Dar.

Yes, that's his that is my chair.

Sorry.

Okay, yeah, so you sit here and I will remain at the chair in which I started the show in this chair right here.

And you should have known that.

So

Tim.

Hi there.

Hi there.

It was just a lot of people saying hi there, but I remember walking in the hallways between dress and air and having LeBron see me and give me a little wave in costume and being like, hi there.

I was like, hi, Dare.

There was also, I don't know if it went to air, but Polar had a character named Lois Ernampooch.

Do you remember Lois Ernanpooch?

I don't.

She was a motivational speaker.

And the two things I remember about Lois Ernan Pooch, she wrote it with Paula.

She sort of had a Chicago accent.

And it was about self-sabotage.

She kept talking about don't self-sabotage.

And she said

she once went to a Oprah book signing, and this was her story of self-sabotage.

Oprah Winfrey was going down shaking people's hands, and she tried to high-five Oprah, and Open Hand slapped her in the face.

I do remember that.

But the other thing I will never forget is at some point, so her guest on her talk show is LeBron James, and she says, LeBron, you got to use your LeBrains.

You got to use your LeBrons.

Use your LeBrains.

That was another line of another very sticky line from this episode.

Yep.

All right.

Well, you know what?

This was

a real special one.

You're special, guys.

We're back next week with a real dumb one.

I still wish it had one.

Can I just say, Cecily, thanks for saying all those nice things.

It makes me feel good.

Yeah, this was a nice one.

Very, very sweet of you.

It's genuinely something I can always go back to.

I don't know why.

It just like drills me back to that time more than any other one.

I feel like we talked about so many different things for like maybe an hour just now.

And my main takeaway is, you said I looked handsome.

Yeah.

And like seven different outfits.

Can I also just put you on Front Street a little bit, Seth, because this isn't being filmed.

Seth teared up when he was talking about it.

And that's actually how I feel about this short as well.

So yeah, it's really good.

Is the lesson that if you tell wardrobe and hair, like, I want to look handsome, dress me like I'm a person who thinks thinks he's handsome, then you just suddenly look

way more handsome.

Yeah, you should tell a stylist, like, what if I wanted to be handsome?

What would I wear?

Yeah, and then all of a sudden, it's like, shit, you would always walk by.

Oh, you need this closet.

Yeah, you would just walk by and be like, I'm not handsome enough to wear that.

That's truly what it was.

It depends.

I mean, you know, everyone has a version that looks better or worse on them, though, you know?

Yeah.

Like on this one, we were like, make me look like John Travolta and from Paris with love.

I don't think that had come out yet.

All right.

I love you guys.

I love you very much.

We love you too.

See you too.

Love you, buddy.

Bye-bye.