Seth Meyers is often celebrated for being the nicest man in late night. However, even the best boss has to lay down the law sometimes — and on NBC’s “Late Night,” he does that in the form of Surprise Inspections.
“It’s almost Thanksgiving. Everybody’s gathering for the feast, and that includes my writers. You know, they write hundreds of jokes every day just to get the 10 or 12 we use in the monologue. And honestly, a lot of those jokes just aren’t good. Sometimes I think they throw in a few stinkers on purpose just to fill the page, meet the assignment,” Meyers shared in Wednesday night’s monologue. “But just because the pumpkin pie is cooling on the sill, doesn’t mean we can tolerate laziness, which means it’s time for another Surprise Inspection.”
“Here’s how this works: I am going to read some real jokes that were really submitted by my real writers that we pay real money. Some are dumb, some are offensive, some are just insane,” he further explained. “Most importantly, my writers don’t know we’re doing this, and because they don’t watch the show, they’ll never know.”
“We will be showing the pictures of the writers to shame them and also, you know, as a cautionary device. So if you ever see someone who looks like this coming, cross the street,” Meyers then warned after the first joke. “By the way… we also start with the ones we think will go the best.”
The axed jokes this time around all came from a trio of writers: Matt Goldich, Bryan Donaldson and Mike Scollins.
Earlier in the monologue, the jokes that seemingly passed the inspection revolved around topics such as Donald Trump, The New York Times, Subway, KFC, ASU, Brazil, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and the Pope.
“Late Night With Seth Meyers” airs weeknights at 12:35 a.m. ET on NBC.
