Great Day

Pop-ups (20 · 6 fan picks from YouTube comments)

1. Fans point here

   1:20

   3 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 2 likes.

   you know high-end medical warehouse stuff but you stick a thing in your nose and you press the button you have to plug your other nose with your finger and it basically just like creates all this pressure in your head… — Seth

2. Backseatsman and 56th and Lennox

   6:50

   The hosts discuss the 'Backseatsman' short, where everyone rides to 56th and Lennox, a joke that came from a misremembered Alicia Keys lyric.

   it was about 56 and lennox that everybody wanted to ride in chester's car was going to 56 and lennox
   Quaid

3. Fans point here

   7:53

   3 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 1 likes.

   That's right. In the video. And in the song she says, oh, I'm that waitress who works at that coffee shop over on 39th and Lenox. And at the time, We all thought it was hilarious, the fact that she said 39th and Lenox.

4. Starfish, the script supervisor

   19:55

   Kristen Wiig's Starfish character is an unforgettable oddball from Arizona Evenings, a soap-opera sketch. The hosts find her crazy voice and teeth the sketch's engine.

   do you remember when she played a script supervisor oh my god is this that one

5. Commercial parody spot after the monologue

   22:01

   Hosts note the old SNL format of monologue into commercial parody into sketch, here shown as Great Day running straight into Arizona Evenings.

   I mean, I think back in the old day, you would sometimes go monologue into commercial parody into a sketch.

6. Lorne's rare praise after dress rehearsal

   22:13

   Lorne Michaels publicly complimented Arizona Evenings after dress rehearsal, a rare sign of approval. Andy recalls the cast being pleased.

   This was one of the few times Lorne, we knew he really liked it because after dress in the meeting between dress and air

7. Swim Team Awards and last-minute rewrites

   24:07

   Seth notes Swim Team Awards had many jokes rewritten between dress rehearsal and air, a common SNL scramble for live broadcast.

   every sketch had like massive rewrites. Like everything between dress and air was like, we're going to do this sketch, but we just, none of the jokes worked.

8. John Lutz's Time Curl Wave, pitched repeatedly

   29:18

   Lutz wrote Time Curl Wave, a sketch about a microwave that also time-travels, and resubmitted it over several seasons before it was picked for his final show.

   And it got picked. And so I was very excited about it.

9. Mike O'Brien as Dr. Zaius all night

   29:35

   In Time Curl Wave, Alec Baldwin briefly became Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes after paradoxes went wrong, so Mike O'Brien wore the costume all night.

   Well, in one shot, Alec turned into Dr. Zaius.

10. Great Day's music was built from one line

    31:47

    Great Day began as a single-line idea Andy pitched to Akiva years earlier. The song was built by singing the first line and melody over a track Catrice produced.

    I went to Catrice, who was in charge of all the music, and I sang her the first line and basically the melody

11. Catrice Sr. and the tempo problem

    33:01

    Catrice made the first track, but the early version ran too slow. The team tried several faster versions before settling on the breakneck tempo.

    So I realized in the folder, my great day folder, I had started organizing by this time. There were like seven versions of it going faster and faster

12. Fans point here

    33:38

    2 YouTube comments timestamp this moment.

    But we kind of just started doing it stream of consciousness, like line by line. And it took us where it took us. And it was really fun. Which I think is a lesson. I don't know if I can pinpoint that. And that's when… — Andy

13. Lesson: start with a strong first line

    33:51

    The hosts describe their songwriting process: find a strong first line that fits a track, then add lines, instead of planning the whole song first.

    if one of us has a really strong first line that matches with music that we either have or have made

14. Cherry Lane corner and the 'I Ran So Far' stoop

    38:05

    The 'Great Day' street is the Cherry Lane Theatre corner in Manhattan's West Village, also seen in the earlier 'I Ran So Far' short.

    and it's your cherry lane corner yeah one of our favorite streets in all of new york city

15. Fans point here

    44:20

    4 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 1 likes.

    All right, should we watch it? Yeah, I got it here. Hold on. Anybody else feel like they're about to fall asleep? Yes. No, I'm good. Oh, that's right. It is like, this is maybe the latest we've ever done one. It is. In…

16. Fans point here

    45:40

    1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 11 likes.

    Like somebody was like, no! He's had some episodes in here. The cabinet's broken. Yes. But anyhow, very happy with how it worked. Now, obviously, I think if they weren't getting it, they would just digitally put in a…

17. Great Day shot on Steadicam with a DP

    48:17

    Akiva notes Great Day was shot on real lenses with a DP and Steadicam, a more polished production mode than the team's early shorts.

    And we're clearly on real lenses and stuff, so it's in our more DP-based mode here.

18. Starfish returns as continuity callback

    57:52

    A script-supervisor callback: Starfish from Arizona Evenings reappears in a Great Day continuity moment, tying the two sketches together.

    Starfish was script supervisor. Wow. Full circle on Starfish. That's perfect.

19. Manny Manimal's repeated resubmissions

    59:33

    Jost resubmitted his Manny Manimal pitch to SNL several times, a recurring 'resubmit' story the hosts keep returning to.

    Then he resubmitted it for me in 2017. Then he resubmitted it for Finn Wolfhard last week.

20. Manny Manimal's janitor origin

    1:00:12

    Jost's Manny Manimal character was originally named Manny Emanuel, a janitor in the voiceover, a detail the hosts had forgotten.

    the man of many animals manny manimal also in the beginning voiceover he was a janitor named manny emmanuel

21. Tom Petty appears in Great Day

    1:01:49

    Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the season's musical guests, appear in Great Day. The hosts recall how he sat down, was nice, and that they took a photo together.

    Also, fucking rad that Tom Petty was in this.

22. SNL's legend-in-passing culture

    1:02:06

    Andy describes how SNL meant meeting legendary performers casually and briefly, a hallmark of the show's pace.

    You just like meet legendary people you love in passing super quickly and they're like, okay, great, thanks.

23. Quibi: Queen Bee in one word

    1:02:16

    'Quibi' is the shorthand for Queen Bee in NYT's Spelling Bee, a term the fans adopted after a listener suggested it.

    Andy: I realized we never got to whether or not I quibbied
    quibi

24. Andy's clean quibi

    1:02:39

    Andy reports a full 'clean quibi' in the Spelling Bee, the most important achievement in the pod's word-game lore.

    I got a full on clean quibby and there were 80 words and I felt so proud.
    quibiclean

25. Fans point here

    1:03:12

    1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 8 likes.

    Take it away, Arnold. No. Oh, no, sorry. Love you, Quaids. Love you, Quaids. Take it away, Arnold. And he goes, boom, boom, boom. Hey there. He doesn't respond to that. Oh, he doesn't. So you tell me what he responds…

26. Ending credits: 'later Quaids'

    1:03:23

    The podcast's sign-off is 'Later Quaids,' a line Arnold Schwarzenegger recorded at Seth's request after Late Night.

    Later, Arnold. Later, Quaids.
    later, Quaids