‘Naked Gun’ Director Akiva Schaffer on SNL, The Lonely Island, and Tim Robinson

Obsessed: The Podcast

The Daily Beast

Tv & Film

4.5 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Akiva Schaffer prefers to stay behind the scenes. But that doesn’t mean he’s any less funny than his Lonely Island bandmates Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. The three middle school best friends started shooting videos right out of college before landing a plush gig making digital shorts for ‘Saturday Night Live,’ including hits like “Lazy Sunday,” “Dick in a Box,” “Jizz in My Pants” and many others. In this episode, Schaffer talks about their unusual path to SNL and how directing outrageous movies like ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’ led him to take on a meta ‘Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers’ reboot for Disney+ starring Samberg and John Mulaney—and now the huge ‘Naked Gun’ reboot starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. He also explains why he might be single handedly responsible for Netflix deciding to greenlight ‘I Think You Should Leave’ with Tim Robinson. This episode was originally published on May 24, 2022. Follow The Lonely Island on Instagram @thelonelyisland Follow Matt Wilstein on Bluesky @mattwilstein Follow The Last Laugh on Instagram @lastlaughpod Highlights from this episode and others at The Daily Beast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Last Laugh.
0:05.7	I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast.
0:08.3	So this past weekend, something really weird happened.
0:12.3	A big new studio comedy opened in theaters, and people actually went.
0:17.9	And sure, a lot of the success of the new Naked Gun movie can be chalked up to its lead,
0:23.2	noted comedy star Liam Neeson. But for my money, the person who deserves the most credit
0:28.2	is the film's co-writer and director, Akiva Schaefer. With that in mind, we are taking
0:33.8	this week to revisit my really fun conversation with Akiva, who along with
0:37.9	Andy Samberg and Yor Matakoni founded the Lonely Island and had a huge impact on Saturday Night Live
0:43.8	by introducing the digital shorts. Akiva and I talked back in 2022 around the release of the
0:50.7	previous movie he directed, another reboot, this one of Chippendale Rescue Rangers.
0:55.8	But we spent most of our talk on the Lonely Island's incredible run at SNL, from the breakout
1:01.3	hit of Lazy Sunday to massive songs like Dick in a Box, I'm on a Boat, and so many others.
1:07.7	And by the way, if you have not been listening to Akiva help break down the digital shorts
1:11.9	one by one on the Lonely Island and Seth Myers podcast, I highly recommend it. It's easily one of my
1:18.0	absolute favorite podcast to listen to right now. All right, we are going to get into our conversation
1:23.7	in just a minute. But first, here's a clip of Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson from The Naked Gun.
1:31.8	What if we had a little dinner together? I sure could go for a bite. Slow down, chef. This turkey burns of
1:40.8	450. How hot was I cooking? About a thousand.
1:45.9	Turkey needs slow and low.
1:48.2	Unless you like your center pink.
1:50.5	No, I love my center's pink.
	...

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