Ten years and three kids into his tenure hosting NBC’s Late Night, Seth Meyers is at a point in his life where he doesn’t need to be doing stand-up. But to hear him tell it, perhaps the stage is as much an escape from real-life for him as it is for his audiences.
The Gist: Meyers has been on our TV screens for more than two decades now, first as a writer/performer on Saturday Night Live (where he served as head writer as well as Weekend Update anchor), and since February 2014 as host of Late Night with Seth Meyers.
In addition to his late-night duties, he also hosts two podcasts: “Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers” and “The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.” He published a children’s book (“I’m Not Scared, You’re Scared”) in 2022, and he co-headlines a monthly residency with fellow late-night host John Oliver at New York City’s Beacon Theatre.
Meyers received an Emmy nomination for writing for his debut solo special, Lobby Baby for Netflix, and five years later, he has turned up on HBO and Max, once again talking about his children as well as his marriage.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Neal Brennan directs his longtime comedy friend here, and there are times where you can see how they rub off on each other, how Meyers might be a representation of what Brennan’s comedy might look like if he were married with kids.
Memorable Jokes: As the title suggests, Meyers puts his fatherhood center stage. Specifically, crediting his kids for making him a more successful comedian?
“I’m having a crisis of confidence because my 6-year-old has recently started saying something that’s funnier than any joke I’ve written in the past year,” he reveals almost immediately, adding: “The minute he said it I couldn’t wait to get onstage and tell it to you.” But this is not a new phenomenon for him. Meyers wants us to know that despite all of his NBC money, “Lobby Baby has paid for college,” making the “Ka-ching!” sound for emphasis.
Which has led to him mining his kids for material. Or as Meyers explains in this play on words: “I want them to be content. But I also want them to be content.”
His wife, Alexi, also gets name-dropped, not only for his ability to draw Amazon’s “Alexa” device into their domestic disputes, but also to enhance his position that he’s somehow outnumbered (or at least outnamed) in his own home.
For those of you who didn’t watch his episode of Finding Your Roots on PBS, Meyers explains how and why his impersonation of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets is OK, even if more audiences tend to associate the comedian with the 25 percent of his DNA that comes from Lithuanian Jews. And whether or not you did see President Joe Biden’s memorable visit to Late Night for Seth’s 10th anniversary show earlier this year, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes story about what happened when his three kids got to meet the president.
Our Take: Late Night fans, take note: There’s a lot more about his home life than his work life or the current political landscape here, so this hour is much more “A Closer Look” inward on how Meyers is managing (or not) to balance it all personally.
“I am happy to inform you I have no anti-trans material,” he makes a point of saying, but not so much to weigh in on his edgelord colleagues in comedy, as much as to draw a contrast between gender identity and dietary identity. In his worldview, transitioning to veganism, as Seth’s brother has, is much more of a disruption. And yet, even in his annoyance, he’s got to hand it to his brother for looking much healthier than him as a result.
Although he sounds much more annoyed with his wife and kids than he is with his brother, his parents or even his in-laws. Making himself the put-upon dad who can only find peace by lingering underneath the couch for a few extra moments after crawling to fetch the dice his kids had thrown there during a board game. He and his wife might be teaching their children not to use the word “hate” in their vocabulary, but Seth has more than a few things he hates about them (kidding not kidding), to the point where he finds himself taking pleasure out of ripping the sweaters off of his children as a substitute for actually hitting them. And when he gets into arguments with his wife, Seth finds an ally in his mother-in-law.
This is all kinda classic sitcom dad material to be sure, imagining Meyers as a version of Ray Romano’s Everybody Loves Raymond, for instance.
Meyers also flashes moments of self-awareness that he’s perhaps not the victim. He admits to not knowing still how to collapse a stroller, and talks as if his wife handles the bulk of the parenting duties despite the fact that she has a career, too, as a lawyer. And he acknowledges that it must be difficult emotionally for his wife to even be married to a comedian, not only because his job tempts him to say the wrong things to her, but then also to repeat them to millions of strangers later for the sake of the joke.
How can he resist, though, when his children keep providing him with such great punchlines?
Our Call: STREAM IT. Of all of today’s late-night hosts, Meyers remains the least likely you’d expect to see doing stand-up comedy, and yet somehow, he’s also the most proficient of them at doing it right now?
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.