-Our first guest tonight is a very funny comedian you know
from his work on "Saturday Night Live"
and films like "Sisters" and "The Secret Life of Pets."
He stars in the new show "Mr. Mayor,"
which airs Thursday nights here on NBC.
Let's take a look.
-Hey, Jayden, I found
the mayor's little bus speech real original.
-It actually wasn't.
To save time, I just took his last speech
and changed "algae bloom" to "bus passengers."
-I was being sarcastic.
-Well, you're great at it.
-Yeah, Jayden, Twitter has started to notice
that we're recycling speeches.
-Small businesses are the lifeblood of this city.
Reasonably priced produce is the lifeblood of this city.
The passing of Archbishop Sheehan is the lifeblood --
You're killing me.
Yeah, the comms department may be stretched a little thin.
-Why, thank you.
-Please welcome back to the show
our very good friend Bobby Moynihan.
How are you, Bobby?
Bobby? Oh, no.
Oh, no, Fred got to Bobby, you guys.
-My Fred bit.
-How are you, my friend?
-Good. How are you, sir? -I'm good.
So, you're actually in a trailer right now.
You guys are shooting?
-I'm in a trailer. I just moved in.
It's very nice.
Yeah, no, we're shooting episode nine right now.
-Episode nine. And I think when you think of
how long between a pilot and then when you actually shoot
the second episode, that's a fairly long time.
But then you guys had it stretched out even longer
because of the pandemic.
How long have you been working on Season 1 of this show?
-We may have beaten some sort of television record.
We started shooting this I think last year.
We were on episode four when the lockdown happened.
So we've been shooting for a while.
And then we all became very good friends over Zoom
and then came back and started shooting.
And it felt like a reunion for a show that hasn't aired yet.
-And from that clip, I mean,
there's some real heavy hitters in there, Bobby.
Holly Hunter and Ted Danson.
How's that been so far?
-It's the greatest.
Ted Danson might be the nicest human in the world.
And watching Holly Hunter do anything is the best.
I'm in love with her.
She's this big and I want to carry her around on my shoulder.
[ Laughter ]
-How is sitcom life versus "SNL"?
You always had such a good eye for sort of everyday weirdoes
that you would see and then use as inspiration.
Is it different now that you're just playing one man?
-Yes. We know our own, Seth.
Yes.
I play Jayden Kwapis in this.
I think he's enough of a weirdo for all of my "SNL" needs
of playing lots of weirdoes.
I'm very happy.
-Jayden Kwapis is a fantastic name.
-Not so bad.
-A Carlock and Tina Fey --
A Robert Carlock and Tina Fey special,
which leads to a great joke in the pilot about the name Jayden.
But, Bobby, I don't need to tell you
you've long been a lover of crazy names for characters.
-I love crazy names. I'm no James Anderson.
James Anderson makes up the best names in the world,
but I am a fan of insane names, yes.
-These are just some characters you played on "SNL."
We collected a li-- Riblet.
-Correct.
-You played Ass Dan and his identical twin brother.
Do you remember Ass Dan's twin brother?
-Butt Dave.
Yeah, it was supposed to be Jeff Bridges,
but it wasn't. It was me. [ Laughter ]
-You played Slappy Pappy and Janet Peckenpaw.
You played Nif. What was Nif short for?
-Kennif. -[ Laughs ]
-That was a Neil Casey original.
Kennif is short -- Yeah, Nif was short for Kennif.
-Kirby J. Buttercream, Trash Yard Mutt.
You played a character named Danny Cartoons?
-Danny Cartoons. I think that may have gotten cut.
But, yes, I did.
-What was Danny Cartoons known from?
-In the Larry David sketch about the doughnut,
about when he popped out and he had the doughnut.
I don't remember. [ Laughter ]
About a doughnut.
-And then Bitch Fantastic was a character.
-Bitch Fantastic was a name that I wrote on a Post-It Note
months before I got "SNL."
And I said, "Someday I want to use this on the show,"
and I think I got it on in my eighth year.
[ Laughter ]
-Sometimes the best --
You needed America to be ready for it.
-Correct.
I'm still not sure they are.
-What about Toothpick and Skippy?
Were you Skippy or were you Toothpick?
-I was Skippy.
I was a man who enjoyed to eat
Skippy peanut butter all the time.
And Jay was just a silent man was a toothpick in his mouth.
And we were two shy men who worked in an office
who always wanted to be asked to hang out,
but when they got asked to hang out,
they were too afraid to hang out.
It was insane.
-And how did the sketch go during dress?
-As you would think, it went fine.
I think Will Ferrell was the host.
He was a little tired, and it was the one sketch where, like,
we kind of felt that it might not go 'cause it was insane.
Both Skippy and Peanut died at the end of the sketch.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Will Ferrell, as he was leaving the stage, was, like,
"Oh, that was great. We're not gonna do that one."
[ Laughter ]
I felt very thankful for him to know before the show started,
and I was, like, "Yeah, that one's not happening."
-He had good instincts.
We'll be right back with more from Bobby Moynihan.