My favorite podcast of recent vintage has been the one where Seth Meyers talks with Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer — aka The Lonely Island — about the origins of all the Digital Shorts they made during their time together on Saturday Night Live. The chemistry between these longtime friends is both funny and sweet, and the sheer number of running gags — particularly Andy's obsession with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall — make it a delight beyond the mid-2000s nostalgia.
What began as a show with a relatively tight focus on the Digital Shorts eventually expanded into talk about the experience of making each episode, origins of live sketches, and the overall vibes of what Seth has taken to calling "an golden era," in an attempt to not sound like they're trying to suggest their time on the show was better than the Belushi/Radner/Murray cast, the Carvey/Hartman/Hooks cast, etc.
The thing is, at the time that "Lazy Sunday" — the second Digital Short, after the cute but forgettable "Lettuce" — debuted 20 years ago last Wednesday, it didn't really feel like an golden era of the show. Samberg and other newcomers like Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis (who had become a featured player the prior season) clearly had talent. But the sketches in the early part of that season felt pretty lifeless and overly familiar, as you might expect from a show that was in its 31st season at the time.
Then came that December 17, 2005 show, and, well, this happened: