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One of Saturday Night Live's most famous head writers and Weekend Update anchors, Seth Meyers was born in 1973 and raised in New Hampshire, he attended Northwestern University and joined the cast of SNL in 2001, making him one of the longest-running member of the cast. He began co-anchoring Weekend Update in 2006 with Amy Poehler, and continued to do so even after Poehler's departure from the show in 2008 for the next five years. Though there were many rumours that he might have taken over from longtime Show Runner Lorne Michaels, Seth ultimately left the show in 2014 to take over as the next host of Late Night.
Has a younger brother named Josh Meyers (who looks like Seth, except Josh is a redhead and is three years younger), who was a cast member on SNL's former rival sketch show Mad TV from season eight to season nine, then played Randy on the final season of That 70s Show.
Tropes[]
- Always Second Best: On Late Night, no matter what Seth does, everyone will like Cue Card Wally better than him.
- Ambiguously Jewish: In late March 2012 he spoke at the University of Florida; unbeknownst to him, he was also considered the keynote speaker for the university's Jewish Awareness month. When told this during Q&A, he confirmed that he is in fact not Jewish (although he understands why people think he is) and that UF's Jewish Awareness is pretty bad.
- Blue Eyes
- Deadpan Snarker: Meyers is somewhere between Dennis Miller and Norm MacDonald (or Brad Hall and Norm MacDonald) on the "Snarkiest Weekend Update Anchor" scale.
- Demoted To Weekend Update Anchor: Starting in Season 32 [1], Meyers rarely appeared in any sketch outside of Weekend Update. He continued to appear in some sketches (like in a cold opening that had Mitt Romney's five children or in the "Original Kings of Catchphrase Comedy" pretaped sketches as Boston Powers[2]), but it was quite rare. It set the precedent for later performers who graduated to Weekend Update Anchors.
- Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Played for Laughs on Weekend Update during the Ho Yay-tastic Stefon segments.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: With Bill Hader and Colin Jost.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Avowed comic book fan? Check. Avid gamer? Check. Admitted to crying during the penultimate episode of Battlestar Galactica? Ding ding ding.
- Odd Couple: With Martha Stewart, of all people. Watching his frequent appearances on Stewart's show is both bizarre and thoroughly entertaining.
- Mentioned on a fake SNL commercial for a photo studio specializing in taking cell phone pictures of men's penises. Seth Meyers' testimonial ends with him saying, "You're welcome, Martha Stewart."
- One of Us: Unashamedly.
- Platonic Life Partners:
- He often refers to Amy Poehler as his "best friend" and even signed off each of his solo Weekend Update segments by tapping the desk where she used to sit.
- After five years of doing Weekend Update solo, he really clicked with his co-anchor Cecily Strong despite their brief time together.
- Self-Deprecation: Much of his humor on Late Night is about how much he sucks and isn't as funny as he'd like to think he is.
- Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Andy Samberg.
- He also has this with his Late Night cue-card holder, Wally Forte who is regarded by the entire audience and internet as much better than Meyers could ever be.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "Really??" tends to be this towards a specific individual.
- Take That: His excellent roast of Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011. Made even better by the fact that Trump was sitting right in front of him, visibly furious.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Many people on the American left-wing blame him for Donald Trump's presidency, opining that Seth, in the Take That above, angered Trump enough to run for real. Trump though has publicly denied this, saying he was considering running long before the dinner. And indeed by some sources, Trump had pondered a Presidential run since 1987.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Typical of his impressions during his years as a repertory cast member (from season 27 to season 31 [3]. Near the end they began to veer into Not Even Bothering with the Accent territory. Particularly hilarious when you take into account that he lived in Europe for several years and his brother, Josh, is better at accents and voices than he is as evidenced on his two-year stint on Mad TV
- Weirdness Magnet: The characters Meyers interacted with on Weekend Update tended to be very colorful to say the least (Bill Hader's Stefon, James Carville as played by Bill Hader, Nicolas Cage as played by Andy Samberg, Bobby Moynihan's Drunk Uncle, Andy Samberg's Larry the Goose and Liam, the Teenager Who Just Woke Up, pretty much every character played by Kristen Wiig and Cecily Strong's The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party) and the only thing Meyers can do is play Only Sane Man.