Laser Cats!

Pop-ups (40 · 3 fan picks from YouTube comments)

1. Fans point here

   0:07

   1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 161 likes.

   This is going to be a little off the tracks because Andy is having a cup of coffee and he is wildly affected by caffeine. Yeah, I'm on so much jov. You've always called it jov. Well, what we've called it is crawdad. — Seth

2. Andy's jov intake

   0:15

   Andy says he's 'on so much jov,' an early example of the coffee shorthand the hosts use. The show treats caffeine as a standing joke.

   Yeah, I'm on so much jov.
   javon the jav

3. Blue Bottle and the crawdad jov

   0:25

   The hosts riff on Andy's coffee habit, which they've been calling 'jov,' a spelling of 'java' that's part of the show's coffee vocabulary. Blue Bottle opened a shop in the basement of 30 Rock.

   Remember when they opened a blue bottle in the basement of 30 Rock?
   jav

4. Frisbee's Christmas card scratch-off

   2:31

   Andy scratched Frisbee's face out of a Christmas card Seth sent, a running cruelty between the two about Seth's Italian greyhound. Frisbee is a female dog despite the name.

   You scratched off Frisbee's face like a serial killer.

5. Laser Cats began as a sketch

   6:16

   Laser Cats was first written as a sketch, a bad one that was later reworked into the digital short. The hosts didn't realize how bad the original was until rereading it.

   it was originally written as a sketch. A bad sketch. A badly written sketch.

6. The original premise: laser-shooting cats

   7:32

   The live sketch imagined a nuclear-war future where cats shoot lasers out of their mouths. Andy and Natalie Portman play a couple selling repackaged laser cats, with a robbery plot. It was written for the Natalie Portman show.

   in the future, a nuclear war has happened and cats can now shoot lasers out of their mouths.

7. Jorm's real laser cat

   8:48

   The laser-cat idea came from Jorma's cat Willie, which he would hold like a gun while pretending to shoot his wife with lasers.

   my cat Willie, I would hold the cat with my hand before the front legs and I would cock it

8. Lo-fi as intentional abrasion

   10:11

   Akiva notes the lo-fi look is purposely abrasive, which can make the short hard to latch onto. Jorma argues the contrast with the HD show is the point.

   I think the lo-fi is a bit abrasive and it's purposely so, but that can be a little hard to latch onto.

9. Lorne pitch framing device

   10:39

   The short opens with Bill and Andy pitching the idea to Lorne. Akiva came up with the framing device, and the hosts agree the bad pitch is what makes it work.

   The key, obviously, framing device of it that is one of the things I do like a great deal is it always begins with Bill and Andy trying to pitch this idea to Lorne.

10. Akiva's pitch idea

    10:55

    Akiva pitched the framing device of Andy and Jorma pitching to Lorne, saying the idea should be stupid but the audience needs to know it's on purpose.

    it was Akiva's. Okay. I remember it vividly.

11. Lorne's fictional bluntness

    12:34

    The hosts note the on-screen Lorne is more blunt than the real one, who would never say the idea sounds bad, but works as a fictional multiverse version.

    Lauren would never say, well, it sounds bad.

12. The Collateral sweeted pitch

    12:52

    The MTV Movie Awards writers' room the year before had a pitch for Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx to recreate Collateral as lo-fi cardboard-set kids. The pitch never happened, but it fed the sweeted aesthetic.

    they had come to us like they do sometimes with something that'll never happen. Collateral was coming out.

13. Sweeted: a Be Kind Rewind term

    13:44

    The word 'sweeted' for amateur recreations of films appears to come from the 2008 movie Be Kind Rewind, where it describes the homemade remakes.

    That is what they called it in that movie.

14. The cocked-cat laugh

    16:47

    Seth calls the cat cocking and meow the first real earned laugh of the short, a gag that Jorma and the crew built on.

    First big laugh, earned laugh for my money, is cocking the cat.

15. Lorne's office popcorn

    17:53

    Seth recalls Lorne's office always had a giant basket of popcorn, which he stress-ate for twelve and a half years, leaving his gums sore from flossing kernels.

    I stress ate popcorn for 12 and a half years.

16. Andy's Wordle and Queen Bee

    18:31

    Andy got Wordle in four and Queen Bee on the Spelling Bee, both mid-episode side bits. Queen Bee is the Spelling Bee's highest rank.

    He got in four, guys. It's a very average score. Four.
    Queen Beeclean

17. Fans point here

    18:52

    1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 161 likes.

    Anyways, I did wordle because Seth was telling his popcorn thing. Should we move on? Yeah, let's move on. Saporat comes from Airbnb. As we've talked about, I just got back from St. Lucie watching the Mets. — Andy

18. Fans point here

    23:35

    1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 161 likes.

    It does it all. I got another big laugh out of you guys signaling each other. Andy, you sort of did that military thing of pointing at your eyes and then gesturing and then Bill did another one. And you very subtly…

19. The NBC cafeteria

    24:02

    The cafeteria in the sketch is the NBC cafeteria where SNL and A-list movie stars ate lunch on Saturdays. The crew shot there often.

    that is fully where SNL and famous A-list movie stars would have to eat their lunch on a Saturday.

20. Damn us, not damn these cats

    25:04

    The Laser Cats film has almost no jokes beyond the 'Kimo Sabe' line. Andy's 'no, damn us' is cited as a rare piece of clean writing in an otherwise straight-faced short.

    Bill says, damn these laser cats, and Andy says, no, damn us.

21. Real crowds in the hallways

    25:45

    Many people in the background of Laser Cats are real NBC staff walking to work, not extras. A mirror was intentionally placed in one shot to show more people.

    those are all people trying to get to work.

22. Unwrangleable cats

    26:14

    The production hired an animal wrangler for the real cats, and the hosts joke that cats simply cannot be wrangled. Wranglers often report that the animals can't do what was asked.

    And it turns out you can't wrangle cats. They're unwrangleable.

23. Lasers come from the mouth

    27:36

    Fans often think the lasers shoot from the cats' eyes, but the hosts insist the lasers fire from the mouth, originating in the gut.

    people somehow think that the lasers are coming out of the cat's eyes, which is just bogus

24. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

    28:22

    A BBC horror-comedy about a writer who has written more books than he's read. The hosts recommend its six episodes as a cult favorite and admit they discovered it after making Laser Cats.

    Garth Marenghi's Dark Place was a big hit for all of us.

25. Lorne Michaels' cameo

    30:08

    Lorne appeared in Laser Cats as himself, a high-status, eye-rolling role the hosts say suits him. Seth notes Lorne's pattern of appearing in their shorts.

    I like that through line of Lorne through the years being in sketches as Lorne.

26. Seth's final season as cast member

    30:51

    Seth describes this as the last stretch of being an on-camera cast member before he sought the Weekend Update anchor job, a bid that set up his later career.

    These are the final days of Seth Meyers trying to grind it out on camera as a cast member.

27. Tina Fey's exit from Weekend Update

    31:10

    Tina Fey announced her departure from Weekend Update as 30 Rock picked up, opening the anchor spot Seth wanted.

    Tina at this point has announced she's leaving because 30 Rock has picked up

28. Stormy Windbreaker's end-of-days forecast

    31:25

    Seth's Weekend Update weatherman character denies global warming and predicts apocalyptic weather like tornado canes and the sun going black. The sketch was part of his anchor audition.

    I just think it's end of days.

29. Barry Shirtsworth becomes Stormy Windbreaker

    32:16

    The weatherman was called Barry Shirtsworth at dress rehearsal and was renamed Stormy Windbreaker between dress and air. The group agreed the change was a last-minute fix born of desperation.

    At Dress, I played a weatherman named Barry Shirtsworth.

30. Triage between dress and air

    32:48

    Between dress rehearsal and air, the hosts describe a desperate triage mindset where judgment drops away and any fix is accepted.

    It's triage. You're like so desperate.

31. Tornado canes

    33:26

    The weather bit invented 'tornado canes,' hybrid storms that commit crimes like identity theft, a riff on the smarter sharks in Deep Blue Sea.

    tornado canes, he was talking about tornadoes and hurricanes were mating

32. Seth's view of his own performance

    34:26

    Seth says he remembers his Weekend Update work as playing hot, even though the year felt stressful as a cast member, and his castmates saw him as the calm, older one.

    I had no idea that is how you viewed it at that time.

33. Fighting for your piece

    35:12

    Seth and Tina Fey, then head writer and writing supervisor, were both known for not fighting for their own sketches, but the final sketch between dress and air became an exception.

    Neither of us were known for fighting for our pieces.

34. School Announcement and the sibling fight

    36:14

    Lorne put two of his kids in School Announcements knowing one would get cut, a story Seth tells about a sketch cut on air.

    Lorne put them both in the show, knowing full well that one would get pulled.

35. The humiliation of cut sketches

    36:22

    Cast members who had a sketch cut still had to appear in costume during Goodnights, a moment the hosts describe as humiliating.

    you got to go get in the costume.

36. Good Nights ritual

    36:58

    Goodnights, the final cast bow, was considered a sacred ritual that Seth never skipped, though some cast members reportedly skipped it out of spite.

    I never skipped Good Nights.

37. The Clockwork Orange stare

    38:12

    Seth jokes about being forced to watch Goodnights with eyes pried open like Clockwork Orange, a reference to the 1971 film.

    If I had to Clockwork Orange all the good nights

38. School Announcement cut

    38:47

    Seth wrote School Announcement for Dane Cook, and it was cut on air. He tried a second version that was also cut, and a Lindsay Lohan-Fred Armisen Bye Bye Birdie spoof aired instead.

    One detail here is not in the transcript.

    School announcements, which was a sketch I wrote for Dane Cook that aired.

39. Liberace's camera stare

    40:08

    Fred Armisen's Liberace keeps looking directly into the camera in the Bye Bye Birdie-style sketch, a bit Seth calls one of his favorite lines in the piece.

    Their absolute lack of chemistry was reinforced by Liberace's insistence of looking directly into the camera.

40. Fred Armisen at Radio City

    40:28

    Fred worked as an usher at Radio City Music Hall during Liberace's shows and later studied the performer's showmanship.

    he worked at Radio City during Liberace's crazy run of shows

41. Showbiz lesson from Liberace

    41:28

    Seth describes Liberace's story about a couple in the audience that repeated nightly with no real couple present, a lesson in showmanship that made the audience feel special.

    To learn a wonderful showbiz lesson from an old pro

42. Polar's blunt advice

    43:03

    Andy recalls his first season, when he apologized to Polar for a joke, and she told him nobody is thinking about anyone but themselves at SNL.

    No one's thinking about anyone but themselves here.

43. Next episode preview

    44:23

    The hosts preview the next two-part episode and the season finale about Testicles with Tom Hanks, plus Peyote and Andy Walking.

    We're going to do Testicles.