Late Night with Seth Meyers

History

Production

Production process

• 8:30am The staff work on the episode's first act, which usually focuses on politics or other current events. A first draft is written by one of the writers, such as Sal Gentile, and Meyers goes over it to add to it or modify it.
• 11:00am The staff has a sketch meeting in which it plans non-political and longer lead-in segments, such as the popular recurring sketches "Extreme Dog Shaming" or "Ya Burnt". The staff use this opportunity to make relevant notes on the sketches.
• 12:00pm Meyers and producer Mike Shoemaker meet with the show's department heads for a production meeting in which graphics, costuming and pre-taping schedules for the episode's segments are discussed.
• 2:00pm – 4:00pm After Meyers reads an estimated 100 to 130 jokes with Shoemaker and a smaller group of monologue writers, he retreats to his office to hone the opening monologue and research the night's guests.
• 4:00pm The staff goes to the Late Night studio for a test run with an audience of people that the production assistants round up outside 30 Rockefeller Center. This test run gives Meyers the opportunity to discern which jokes are working.
• 4:30pm Any changes made in the early meeting are tested with the audience respondents, with fine-tune transitions made on-set by the writers.
• 5:00pm After the rehearsal, Meyers prepares for the real taping, which includes changing into his familiar attire and going over the cue cards.
• 5:45pm In his dressing room, Meyers re-reads his guests' biographies in order to find topics of conversation that they have not been asked about repeatedly. He has said, "If you ask them a question where they see you've done your homework, then they open up more."
• 6:00pm Meyers discusses any last-minute additions with the writers based on the day's events. Typically at least three or four notable news events occur between the first round of jokes to the taping, according to Meyers.
• 6:15pm As the band warms up, Meyers greets the episode's guests in the dressing rooms, while avoiding any pre-taping conversation that would rob the on-set interview of energy.
• 6:25pm Before the taping begins, Meyers goes out to the audience to greet them, asking individual members about themselves and sharing knowledge of the history of Studio 8G.
• 6:30pm Taping begins.

  Show structure and segments

Recurring segments

• A Closer Look: In a desk piece that normally follows the monologue, Meyers explains and satirizes a difficult or misunderstood political issue. One of Meyers' original visions for the show, it has become the signature segment of Late Night. However, when it premiered, the crew could not sustain the longform writing and intense research periods required to develop the segments. The segment typically appears on every episode except for those broadcast on Tuesday nights. Each segment features a broad topic which Meyers explains and jokes about. The segment makes frequent use of news clippings and video from network news. Closely entwined with the monologue, they range in length from three minutes to almost sixteen minutes.
• A Couple Things: Meyers gives a few quick comments in response to, and pointing out the inaccuracies or hypocrisies of, a news story.
• Actathalon: One of the night's guests, normally an established or applauded actor, participates in a series of challenges based on stereotypical movie tropes. Challenges in the ten event series include "looking in the mirror and wondering who you've become", "quitting a job angrily", "hanging up the phone then swiping everything off a desk", and "doing an interview for a movie that you know is horrible".
• Amber Says What?: Staff writer Amber Ruffin discusses the news, ending each comment with "I was like, what," with various emphases on the word "what."
• Amber's Minute of Fury: As opposed to the multiple-topic format of "Amber Says What?", here staff writer Amber Ruffin focuses her ire on a singular topic, news event, or newsmaker.
• At This Point In The Broadcast: Meyers shares an unpopular opinion while a "network apology" scrolls on the screen and is read by show announcer and staff writer Ben Warheit. The disclaimer states due to technical reasons, the segment could not be excised from the broadcast. While it's being read, Meyers is seen pantomiming a profane rant against mundane topics such as trees, exercising at the gym, or Netflix. This sketch is a parody of a message aired during reruns of a 1994 Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Martin Lawrence; his monologue in that episode, which included a rant about female hygiene, got him banned from the show.
• Bad Sponsors: Meyers promotes the fake, horrible sponsors who supposedly give money to the show.
• Back In My Day: Seth reminisces about how things were better in the good old days, but the good old days are really only about a year ago.
• The Check In: Seth discusses a political topic, particularly one relating to the Trump administration, that has not received much attention because it is not timely or spans multiple, smaller news stories. Examples include the Trump administration's relationship with religion or their response to the opioid crisis in America. This segment usually airs once a week on Tuesday nights in place of "A Closer Look," although there are weeks where it does not appear.
• Clear the Air: Seth and a guest sit down one-on-one and take turns seeking forgiveness for the bad things they've said or done to each other.
• Day Drinking: Meyers takes the members of his family around New York City for drinks in the morning, seeing who has the best tolerance. In each segment, everyone in the family always agrees that Seth's mother is the best drinker among them.
• Deep Google: Meyers reads progressively deeper into the last pages of a Google search with "millions of results."
• Fake Or Florida: a game show parody where contestants have to guess whether or not a bizarre crime or incident set in Florida was real. Any contestant from Florida proper is blindfolded in order to level the playing field. Score is kept with manatee cutouts on dowels stuck into a holder.
• Fred Armisen's Extremely Accurate TV Recaps: Seth attempts to prove that bandleader Fred Armisen is lying when he claims to watch every single episode of every TV show by reading him the title of a TV show and asking him to explain what it's about. Fred then ad libs a lengthy and obviously incorrect description of the show. When he finishes, Seth explains what the show is actually about, upon which Fred will claim that his description was more accurate or that the description Seth read was a minor detail of the show that Fred simply left out.
• Fred Talks: Bandleader Fred Armisen improvises an answer to a question from Meyers. Meyers will normally claim that he heard Armisen was involved in a new project and ask if what he heard was true. Armisen always says that it is true, but then elaborately twists the story into being about a service that no one needs. When Armisen is absent due to his other projects, Meyers will instead mail him a FedEx package with a costume inside, from which Fred creates a character. In these cases, the segment is called FredEx. Additionally, whenever an SNL alumnus is on the show, they will pretend to not remember Fred or express having a negative relationship with him.
• Game of Jones: Seth and Saturday Night Live regular Leslie Jones are huge fans of the TV series Game of Thrones, with the latter known for live-tweeting the show as it aired on HBO. On a few occasions during the show's run, Seth and Leslie sat down together to watch and comment on a GOT episode they had not seen in advance. Noted editions of the filmed segments include the bookend episodes of the series' 8th and final season, as well as a 2017 segment in which Conleth Hill, in full-on costume as Varys, surprises Leslie and joins in on the conversation.
• Hey! Seth gets the attention of newsmakers and other figures in current events to deliver them strong words.
• Joke Bucket: Rather than write the setups and then the punchlines for Seth's monologue jokes, his staff tends to write the punchlines ahead of time. Seeking to make lemonade from lemons, Seth pulls punchlines written on slips of paper from an aluminum "joke bucket" until they suitably match a joke setup from the news. A successful match causes Seth to staple the joke and punchline together, stamp it with his approval, ring a "joke bell," and put the match into a "completed joke bucket." Going through mismatches leads to the bucket emptying out before the last joke is matched, causing Seth to seek a match from the likes of a "joke volcano" or a "used joke lot."
• Jokes Seth Can't Tell: When prefacing this segment, Seth notes the diverse makeup of the show's writing team, a group that sometimes writes jokes that he could not deliver without facing criticism. Rather than let those jokes go untold, two of those writers, Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel step in alongside Seth to tell the jokes he cannot. Seth reads the setups, while Amber and Jenny alternate delivering the punchlines. The segment ends with Amber and Jenny coaxing Seth into telling a full joke; when he does, it's met with immediate shock by a chastising Amber and Jenny. Seth's defensive response, after Jenny and Amber said it'd be okay to tell the punchline, was improvised, according to Hagel, by Seth during the segment's first rehearsal; it was left in during that night's taping and has closed the segment ever since.
• The Kind of Story We Need Right Now: Giving his audience a respite from bleak current events, Seth uses this segment to highlight unique, uplifting, and amusing news items. Such examples include a woman who played music by Metallica to scare away a threatening bobcat, and a man who successfully challenged a ticket for using his phone while driving.
• One of My Writers Explains a Joke: Not every joke in Seth's monologue receives a warm response from the audience. For the jokes that really miss the mark, Seth, feigning disappointment, calls on the carpet the staff writer who wrote the joke to explain it to the audience.
• Point, Counterpoint: Writers Ally Hord and Amber Ruffin debate over topics in the news, but while Ally is serious and on-point, Amber goes lightheartedly off-topic with a term Ally had just used. For example, when discussing the Trump administration's attempts to bar transgender people from serving in the U.S. military, Ally calls it a "stunt" to distract from Donald Trump's personal scandals, to which Amber counterpoints with thoughts on how she loves cinematic action stunts. Ally often voices disappointment by Amber's straying, which is quickly defended by Seth.
• Popsicle Schtick: A lengthy and rarely-seen segment mainly used only on shows with few guests or if Meyers is performing ill, the show's writers and graphics departments come together to wrap around purposefully poorly-written jokes usually emblematic of the type seen on Popsicle sticks, with long and elaborate interludes performed by CGI popsicle sticks in costume, which have included parodies of Jesus Christ Superstar and Les Misérables. In one of his annual Thanksgiving night appearances, Seth's father Larry stated "Popsicle Schtick" was his least favorite segment on the show.
• Really?! When Amy Poehler pays a visit, she and Seth reprise their Weekend Update segment in which the two lambast a current topic by angrily and varyingly exclaiming "really".
• Second Chance Theatre: Meyers gives a fellow former Saturday Night Live cast member a chance to stage a sketch they wrote that never made it on the show. Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, and Andy Samberg have participated so far.
• Seth Explains Teen Slang: Meyers takes current pop culture topics and changes them into words that he claims teenagers are using to describe things, followed by an example sentence.
• This Week in Numbers: Meyers uses data, both real and fictional, to set up jokes on pop culture and the news.
• Venn Diagrams: Meyers looks at two different categories, using the spot where they overlap to tell a joke about pop culture and the news.
• What Does Karen Know? Seth shows millennial-aged staff writer Karen Chee images she has not previously seen, primarily items and celebrities popular during her infancy or before her birth. The items are those that Generation X can immediately recognize, so the comedy comes in Karen guessing what they may be, such as a PalmPilot or a Teddy Ruxpin doll, as well as Sethy humorously trying to explain them to her. Karen returns the favor and shows Seth items that she grew up on but he and his generation may not recognize.
• Ya Burnt: Smoke in the studio means it's time for a roast: Meyers tells jokes about six to ten topics, ending each joke with the signature line "ya burnt". Since the second installment, most weeks also feature an "unburnable" topic, which Meyers praises rather than roasts. The sketch almost always ends with time running out right as Seth would have begun to roast a person or thing that would be considered in poor taste to mock. The segment is usually cued up with a running gag involving the mention of a study about migrating Amazonian tree frogs which dates to Meyers's Weekend Update run, which is always interrupted by the siren cuing the segment.

  Live episodes

Episodes

Reception

Ratings

Critical reception

Broadcast