3 minute read
Deep Secrets from The Lonely Island
SNL video gang launches podcast with Seth Meyers
BY CASEY McDERMOTT
Take it from this millennial: If you were anywhere in the vicinity of a computer in the mid-2000s, it was hard to escape The Lonely Island. (Not that we wanted to!)
The trio — made up of childhood friends-turned-“Saturday Night Live” personalities Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone — catapulted to fame through a series of bite-sized digital comedy sketches, often anchored by an absurdist but undeniably catchy musical number.
One of their biggest hits was an original rap celebrating the blissful mundanities of a “Lazy Sunday.” But other breakout tunes featured cameos from the likes of T-Pain (on the enthusiastic and self-explanatory “I’m On A Boat”), Michael Bolton (who croons his way through “Jack Sparrow,” named for the fictional Disney pirate) and Justin Timberlake (whose song isn’t quite fit for print in this particular magazine).
In the nearly two decades since their debut, they’ve put out studio albums, nabbed Grammy Awards and continued churning out production credits on a slew of film and television projects. Now, the band is reconvening to reflect on the mark they left on comedy, internet culture and more — with the help of fellow SNL alum Seth Meyers, who was raised in Bedford.
“The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast” offers a behind-the-scenes look inside the band’s creative process, through a candid and loosely structured series of conversations about what it was like to launch one of the first truly viral phenomena of the modern digital age. The series kicks off with an overview of their earliest efforts to break into the business and their eventual arrival at SNL, and subsequent episodes focus on one Lonely Island short at a time — promising to eventually dissect each segment, in order.
It’s the latest installment in what appears to be a budding podcast empire for Meyers. Last year, he launched the still ongoing “Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers,” in which he and his brother, Josh, interview famous friends — and, memorably, their own parents — about past vacations. As of this writing, both podcasts are among the 50 most popular comedy shows on Apple Podcasts.
On the latest show, Meyers straddles the line between host and participant, interjecting with plenty of his own memories from SNL’s Lonely Island era. There’s plenty of friendly banter on all sides, including in a recurring segment dubbed “Seth’s Corner,” focusing on Meyers’ contributions to The Lonely Island’s sketches.
“We’re gonna tell him what we think for real this time,” Samberg promises at the end of the debut episode, “Not because we were scared of him like back then when he was our boss. No, now we’re gonna tell him the real truth. Prepare to be reamed, Seth.”
