- Hi, I'm Seth Meyers.
I just shot my first stand-up special, Lobby Baby,
and this is how I got started.
(upbeat music)
I grew up in New Hampshire, Bedford, New Hampshire,
which seems like maybe not a place
where comedy would flourish, save for the fact
that Sarah Silverman grew up in my hometown,
and Adam Sandler grew up one town over.
So, it turns out I was destined for this
based on my early zip codes.
I think comedy always just was held
with very high value in our family.
My parents met in Chicago in the 70s.
They would go see Second City shows together.
They considered comedy an art,
not just something that was frivolous.
I think they just shared it with us
'cause it was something that they both loved,
and I owe a great credit to my parents for this.
I never watched stuff that was supposed
to be funny for kids.
My parents at a very age inappropriate time,
introduced us adult comedies, SNL,
when we were really young, a lotta Monte Python.
Comedy albums, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, which that,
we were way too young for,
but you might as well get it in your system early.
No exaggeration, one of the greatest days of my life
was being sick.
And usually when I was sick,
my mom would stay home from work.
And one day for some reason my dad stayed home from work
and he went and rented Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
and we watched it together.
And the opening credits made me laugh harder
than anything I'd ever seen.
It was just to share that with him.
For me it was very important to try to make my dad laugh
as hard as that was making him laugh that day.
My brother and I started doing comedy skits,
comedy sketches I should say,
although I guess if that's high school, they're still skits.
We used to do a comedy night in our high school,
where we would do impressions of teachers
and things of that nature that were, they were fun.
That was probably the first time I walked out on stage
with the purpose of it being comedy for an audience,
and it was like a drug.
I was at Northwestern University.
There was an improv troupe there.
I auditioned for it every year.
I only got in my senior year,
but doing that show my senior year,
and at the time I had already started going to Chicago.
I'd started taking improv classes, and I thought, okay.
I certainly like this more than anything else
I've learned at school.
Which is really unfortunate based on
how much my parents have paid for it.
But, I'm gonna try to do the improv part of this
as long as I can, as a job.
See what happens.
I think coming into Chicago in the mid '90s for me
was this incredible time
because the people that were onstage
were about to basically be this hand
that shaped the next 10, 15, 20 years of comedy,
that you can see Amy Poehler, Rachael Drax,
and Tina Fey and Horatio Sanz and Adam McKay,
and you know, all these people who would
then go on to write for early Conan,
and which then I think, became a show that shaped
what late-night was for the next two decades.
So, it was really cool and it took 10, 20 years
before you realized exactly what the value
of what you were seeing was,
but obviously we thought it was funny,
but I don't think any of us appreciated at the time.
Oh, and all of these people are gonna go off
and they are gonna be the ones who
basically shape the taste of comedy for the future.
I was just doing a two person show in Chicago
at this improv festival and I was lucky enough
that someone from SNL saw it.
And you know, they said for the audition,
should be about five minutes long.
It should be a mix of characters and impressions.
I put a ton of time into it.
I put a ton of time into writing it.
And I think, ultimately being able to write
is a really helpful tool when you're auditioning for SNL
because you want to have jokes in the material.
And to really time stamp it as 2001 for you,
my impressions were Hugh Grant,
Russell Crowe and David Arquette.
David Arquette, how 'bout that?
My favorite character at the update desk,
that's gonna be Stefan.
I mean, you know, I don't wanna look down my nose
at Jon Bovi or Judy Grimes, Kristen Wiig,
shout out to Kristen Wiig.
Olga Pavlotsky, that's a little Kate McKinnon for you.
Oh my God, there were so many good ones.
You know, I think one that does not get enough attention
for how ahead of it's time it was,
was Andy Samburg as Nick Cage doing Get In The Cage.
And the most surreal moment in my time at SNL was
doing Weekend Update with Andy Samburg as Nick Cage,
and then the actual Nick Cage.
I had put no thought into what I was gonna do after SNL.
I had, at the time, been there 12 and a half years
and I had no exit strategy because I did,
I was really happy being there.
I was, for the first time,
it was probably not until year eight
that I felt at home or comfortable.
So, you know, you don't decide to take these jobs.
They kind of get offered to you.
Somebody else decides on your behalf
and then you have to say yes or no.
And it would've been crazy.
The closer it got to make a decision, I realized
I had had a really nice run at SNL
and this would be a cool new challenge.
And my fear was always that my job after SNL
would be boring and I didn't think late-night
would be boring and it turned out I was right.
The idea of starting your own late-night show
was just inherently tough but the most fun part about it,
and the part that I think we did the best job with
is you get to hire a lot of people at once.
And you know, the longer you have a show,
the rarer it is to have an open writer slot.
Whereas in the beginning, you just have all these open slots
and you can take these crazy chances and
hire people who have little to no experience.
So, it was, it felt like the old west, in the beginning.
I think that's true of anyone who starts a show like this,
but it was a really cool and exciting time.
What I enjoy most about having a talk show
is doing the actual show, that hour.
You know, people ask all the time
what the best part about having your own talk show is.
And I think it's, well there's two great things.
One, everyday ends doing a talk show
so it's very hard to put together a talk show.
It's not that hard to do it.
Like, the hour itself is really fun and flies by
because you spend so much time getting it ready
and building this weight bearing structure
that will survive for an hour.
So, that part, ending the day doing a show is great.
And the other part is we work with really great people.
And so there's nobody I'm dreading seeing
and I've never worked at a place like that.
I've been doing stand-up for a long time.
I'd done it a few times where
people from Netflix had seen it and sort of
shown a little bit of interest.
And then the act that I was doing on the road
sorta coalesced into something
that felt a little bit more like a hour,
as opposed to just like random bits of comedy.
And once that happened, it seemed like a cool idea
to try to just, you know, commit it to the record.
As far as touring, you know I went
and did improv for a couple years in Europe.
I did it in Amsterdam.
It was as good a two years as I have ever had.
Mostly just because there was this theater
and you got on stage 200 nights a year.
And you had an audience of Dutch people,
who their English is really good.
Their sense of humor is average.
And so you just had to work really hard.
I shouldn't say their sense of humor is average.
I should tell you the Dutch are the most honest people
and they have never politely laughed at a single thing
they didn't think was funny.
You got the truest balance to your comedy in Amsterdam.
I haven't toured a lot internationally, as a stand-up.
I'd like to just because I like to travel
and that seems like the dumbest reason to do it.
That you're gonna go stand on a stage
in a foreign country and see how it goes.
But global dominance, anyone who knows me will tell you
that that has long been a goal,
is just to be a global brand.
Pepsi, Google, no, it'll be interesting.
Hey, thanks for watching.
Check out my Netflix special, Lobby Baby, streaming now.
(upbeat music)