You may have heard that Seth Meyers and The Lonely Island — Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone — have a new podcast out titled The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, in which the four SNL alums break down their popular digital shorts of yesteryear, their creation, and their impact then and now. Perhaps the announcement even triggered a bit of anticipation, and you made a note to check out the podcast when it dropped. If so, Samberg has an alternate perspective you might want to hear.
During an April 8 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers with Schaffer and Taccone ostensibly to promote the podcast’s release, Samberg took the opportunity to immediately distance himself from the project and the podcast medium as a whole. “I don’t like them, and I don’t think they’re good,” Samberg said. Meyers asked whether these beliefs extend to the podcast he’s currently promoting as well, to which he replied, “Yeah, that’s correct.” Equally poor sales pitches followed from Taccone — “It’s my only opportunity to see friends” — and Schaffer: “I listened to episode one this morning, and I didn’t like how I sounded on it. I don’t like how I sound right now. I’m just going to get a lot quieter in life.”
In spite of the trio’s indifference to the product they’re promoting, their breezy banter should still be a selling point for the podcast, right? Unfortunately not, as their appearance devolves into one bit after another that fails to land, starting with a bit where they claim they’re wearing eclipse glasses exclusively as a “fashion choice,” which Schaffer bails on early, to a bit where they change their Zoom backgrounds to a laser disco and ask Meyers to identify the Lonely Island short it reminds him of (“Jizz in My Pants”), but then the host guesses wrong (“Laser Cats”) and they’re reminded that the question actually had two plausible answers. “Let’s do it a second time,” Samberg says, assuming they’ll be on the same page now. “‘Jizz in My Pants’?” Meyers hesitantly guesses. “No! ‘Laser Cats’!” Samberg replies.
Eventually, Meyers calls out the lack of synchronicity: “So, like, in general, do you think the back and forth we’ve had so far is going to make people more inclined to listen to the pod?” By all rights, the answer should be “no,” but, strangely, we’re more inclined now than ever.
