Harpoon Man

Pop-ups (21 · 5 fan picks from YouTube comments)

1. Fans point here

   0:01

   1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 3 likes.

   Andy and I are drinking a little coffee. Jorma is drinking out of an insanely large, irritatingly large. It basically looks like a hot sauce. I think it's bigger than a hot sauce. It looks like a hot sauce to you?… — Seth

2. Jorma's caffeine denial

   0:16

   The hosts tease Jorma Taccone about claiming he quit coffee and jokingly accuse him of gaslighting them. It is a recurring bit where Jorma insists on his own version of events.

   Who drank the most? I know the answer is me, but who do you guys think drank the most coffee at SNL?
   javon the javoff the javpugging jav

3. The off-the-jav gaslighting

   1:33

   Jav is coffee in the hosts' slang, and being 'off the jav' means abstaining from it. Here the hosts spin Jorma's abstinence claims into a full gaslighting routine.

   Step one, tell people you're off the job. Then when they bring it up, say they're lunatics.
   off the javon the jav

4. Fans point here

   5:05

   1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 3 likes.

   Yeah, we got to talk about anything else. Welcome to another Lonely Island Seth Meyers podcast. We're going to talk about two digital shorts today. And we're also going to talk about what now, when you look back on it,…

5. Fans point here

   6:00

   1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 12 likes.

   I might have been me other times too. But here's the thing. I'm going somewhere here. I read this really great Mike Nichols autobiography by this great writer named Mark Harris. And I would have told you Mike Nichols… — Seth

6. Harpoon Man's Isaac Hayes-style premise

   11:26

   Harpoon Man is a 70s blaxploitation-style song parody, with a deep spoken narrator in the vein of Isaac Hayes. The hosts describe its plot of a whaler turned avenger in New York.

   Well, it's a shaft style 70s blaxploitation song. It's mostly spoken, but in a deep Isaac Hayes-y voice.

7. The win, loss or tie rewrite ritual

   19:47

   Seth describes grading each episode at the Thursday rewrite table as a win, loss or tie. He says hosts with strong performances can make a fine show feel like a loss.

   I remember one season near the end of the year at the Thursday rewrite table. I read through every episode and had the writers say whether it was a win, loss, or tie.

8. Jorma and Akiva's childhood SNL memory

   20:50

   Jorma recalls watching a Kelsey Grammer episode with Akiva as young teens, then rewatching it later on the SNL archive and finding it less impressive. It shows how personal sketch favorites diverge from reality.

   I remember watching it over, like we had recorded it or like, I don't know, like just stuck in my head.

9. Let's Get Spotted was cut from SNL

   23:53

   Let's Get Spotted was a short where Andy and Fred loudly announced their identity around New York, hoping for paparazzi-style attention from Gawker and Us Weekly. It was cut after dress rehearsal.

   Let's Get Spotted was cut after dress.

10. The sketch-ending pet peeves

    26:56

    Seth complains that sketches ending with freeze frames and jams were overused, and he pushed writers to stop. Jorma notes ending sketches with a SpongeBob song signals a weak one.

    Seth: Oh, but I will say, so let's get spotty. It's cut.

11. Seth's Corner: Hugh Laurie's royal advance man

    27:19

    Seth explains a sketch he wrote for Hugh Laurie as a hotel advance man for the queen, with demands for rubber sheets and vodka bottles. Seth's Corner is the segment where he talks about the parts of the SNL episode he wrote.

    So I wrote a sketch for Hugh Laurie, and it's a real wheelhouse sketch for me where he was the guy who goes to hotels
    Seth's Corner

12. Martin Short's monkey in a fur coat

    30:44

    Seth recalls writing a sketch for Martin Short about a monkey in a fur coat, inspired by a photo of a lost monkey in an Ikea. Seth says he asked Short for direction and Short's answer was simply to be like Martin Short.

    And I basically wrote a sketch where Marty was a monkey in a fur coat.

13. Fans point here

    31:07

    1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 28 likes.

    But I remember watching it being like, fuck, this episode's killing. Yeah. Really great. Support for the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast comes from Viore. Yoram, you know what? I remember you saying to me once.… — Andy

14. Fans point here

    32:37

    1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 28 likes.

    clothing Alec Baldwin comes next now we're in November 11th we're getting closer to the Christmas show still not much happening remember now at this point in the season all we have is cubicle fight fine harpoon man… — Seth

15. Evil Speed Reader and Forte's climactic singing

    36:28

    Forte's sketch Evil Speed Reader ends with him singing the song to the tune of Dreamweaver as he walks into the audience. The sketch is recalled as one of the rare times this kind of stunt happened on the show.

    it ended with Forte singing Evil Speed Reader to the tune of Dreamweaver, walking into the audience at the end of the sketch.

16. Maya Rudolph's National Anthem

    43:00

    Seth praises the sketch in which Maya Rudolph sings the National Anthem with twelve different vocal moves, including 'da what'. The hosts note that the sketch depends on her being a genuinely good singer.

    None of it would work if she was a bad singer.

17. Blizzard Man: a live character sketch that worked

    45:38

    Andy recalls Blizzard Man feeling like a breakthrough, the first time a character sketch was written and performed live and actually landed. The crew credits the self-contained structure and Ludacris's enthusiasm as key to its success.

    I remember being like, holy shit, that felt like a new thing where we actually wrote a character sketch live, and it went and worked.

18. The 'Quaid' and Blizzard Man

    47:24

    The hosts discuss Blizzard Man, a character dressed in a Color Me Bad / Vanilla Ice style, that became a fan favorite. Its performance is praised as a model for future live character work.

    I think one of the things that actually saves it the most is that Ludacris is always so hyped.

19. Rap verses rewritten live

    48:59

    The hosts discuss edits between dress and air, including changing 'wiener' to 'thingy' in the Blizzard Man script. These changes show how sketches were tweaked live during production.

    My wiener gets excited to my thingy.

20. Ricticulous and Tropic Thunder

    52:38

    Andy and Jorma mention the rapper joke Rick Diculous, which the hosts say was the original name of the rapper in Tropic Thunder. Stiller reportedly was upset about it because of the SNL joke.

    Fun fact, once that got in, I remember Stiller being upset about it because that was the original name of the rapper in Tropic Thunder.

21. 2Spock rap, the Higgins joke

    53:45

    Jorma recounts that Steve Higgins had long wanted to do a 2Spock rap, and the sketch was written with Higgins. The joke was about Star Trek and the Vulcan rap concept.

    I was tapped by Steve Higgins, who you all know how many years he was talking about 2Spock as a rapper.

22. Poetry Class and the origin of the Chad comparison

    59:51

    Seth wrote a sketch called Poetry Class and realized it resembled the later Pete Davidson Chad sketch, which was franchised. The hosts joke that the team missed the chance to make Poetry Class a recurring short.

    I remember I wrote a sketch. It was a morning show called I Hate This Town.

23. The Christmas Justin Timberlake short

    1:02:07

    Seth recalls the team trying to write a Christmas digital short for Justin Timberlake, a sign that digital shorts were seen as a big thing on the upswing at the show.

    I remember a conversation I had with Lauren about how you guys were trying to write a Christmas digital short for Justin Timberlake.

24. Shorts were new because they were janky

    1:02:53

    The crew argues the lo-fi, non-HD look of early shorts made them feel different from the rest of SNL, and their speed of jokes made them stand out.

    the sort of podunk quality of the filming, literally the quality of what we were making, I do think had the advantage of seeming very different from the rest of the show.

25. Banging through shit, fast jokes

    1:03:39

    Jorma notes that the fast pace of the jokes in these shorts helped even weaker material feel better, because at least it moved quickly.

    Even if it was stupid, it was like, at least it's fast.

26. Yorma's impression sign-off

    1:03:47

    The episode closes with Jorma doing a series of singer impressions, including Neil Diamond, Adele, and Lionel Richie, a recurring sign-off bit the hosts enjoy.

    Yoram's going to do a spot on impression of one of his many singer impressions.