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This story originally published in 2016.
Were republishing it in April 2024 in honor of the newThe Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.
the Lonely Island forSaturday Night Livebetween 2005 and 2012.
We were all just consumers of their work.
They were part of a really great era of the show.
There was something sentimental about going back and looking at the amount that theyd done.
Lorne really pushed them to do one that week, but they had nothing, says Meyers.
So they tried to put out the most offensive thing ever to teach Lorne a lesson.)
So the first step was to pick and rank the top 64.
It was based more on others perceptions than my own personal taste, Meyers explains.
I started with Lazy Sunday.
Thats what got the ball rolling.
Those seemed like big, important ones.
Before long, he had seeded the rest.
Heres what that looked like:
The Bracket
Meyers printed out brackets and distributed them to theSNLstaff.
They picked the winners of the first- and second-round matchups, and Meyers tabulated the results.
(Lorne Michaels voted in the first two rounds.)
For the Sweet 16, he had another idea.
We got pizzas, watched each short, and then everybody would vote.
Theres not a lot of time atSNLwhere everyone sits around without the burden of the show, says Meyers.
So it was a really fun night.
(The other two, Business Meeting and Firelight, were knocked out in early voting.)
My memory was: Pretty big win for Dick in a Box.
Dick in a Box advances!
But the bracket wasnt a popularity contest; it was about what theSNLteam liked best.
Motherlover correctly beat I Just Had Sex.
It makes me laugh harder than any other digital short, he says.
Its so perfect and so stupid, and there are so many moves in it.
Youre not going to get past Lazy Sunday.
Ultimately, Reba was a classic five-seed that couldnt beat the top contenders.
It tired itself out in the early rounds, says Meyers.
Its their song youre most likely to hear at a nightclub.
Im on a Boat advances!
(2) Shy Ronnie (2009) vs. (14) Laser Cats!
3D (2008)
What a Cinderella run for the 14-seeded Laser Cats!
3D, the third of seven fully stupid Laser Cat shorts.
I invite everyone to go back and watch Rihanna in it again, says Meyers.
Its one of the greatest guest appearances in a digital short ever.
(Over 150 million views!)
However, Threw It on the Ground was helped by a repeat viewing just before the voting.
There was a whole subgenre of digital shorts that were basically Jizz in My Pants.
But Threw It on the Ground lives on its own.
Threw It on the Ground advances!
But Iran So Far is something else.
Iran So Far advances!
In a major upset, Motherlover beat its predecessor.
It really did answer the age-old question, Whats more outrageous than a dick in a box?
Its two guys fucking each others moms.
And theyre Patty Clarkson and Susan Sarandon.
Whats going to beat that?
But Im on a Boat is tremendously stupid from start to finish.
They had asked him to do it, and he said no.
Or at the beginning when theyre rapping lightning fast, and they both look so fucking stupid.
And then theyre eating sandwiches in the park, talking to each other.
It really is just fantastic.
For Iran So Far, I think it was helped by when it ran, he says.
It was the season premiere, and that was a great year atSNL.
Everyone got along really well.
So, when we were voting, that reminded people of a really happy time on the show.
So anyone whos ever had to write the second version of anything was so impressed.
Still, Meyers says he never expected Motherlover to win it all.
I picked the one-seeds for a reason, he says.
I thought Im on a Boat would have won.
The choice can be no other.
Winner: Mother Lover!
