Andy Samberg's Weekend Update Zipline Pitch, and Why Seth Meyers Said No

On The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, Andy Samberg recalls pitching a Weekend Update zipline through a breakaway wall, and Seth Meyers saying no.

Quick answer: On The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast Episode 137, Andy Samberg recalls a Weekend Update idea Seth Meyers would not let him do. After a real story about Hugh Jackman getting hung up on a zipline, Samberg wanted Meyers, as the Update anchor, to toss to a comment from Jackman, then zipline into Studio 8H and smash through a breakaway wall behind the desk. Meyers's reason, as the group tells it, was that the stunt "completely destroyed the entire set." A May 3, 2016, Time Out interview by Eve Barlow says he was born David A.J. Samberg and asked to be called Andy at age five. That birth name is not mentioned in the Short.

Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.

The November 13, 2026, episode is titled Helen Mirren's Magical Bosom | The Lonely Island And Seth Meyers Podcast Episode 137. This article uses only the Update-stunt exchange in the Short. The clip is a four-person conversation, and the auto-captions do not label every speaker. The lines below follow who claims the idea, and who is being asked why it was rejected.

The Hugh Jackman bit, and the Update version

The talk starts with an older Hugh Jackman talk-show joke. Someone in the room remembers asking a colleague named Rob what they were working on, and getting back a cold open: "Welcome to the Hugh Jackman talk show." Then, in that telling, Andy "comes down on a zipline and crashes through the set," after "Who's ready to party?"

Samberg cuts in to place the idea. "No, that was the that was the update feature I wrote" for Hugh Jackman, "that you wouldn't let us do."

The "you" is Meyers. Someone answers, "Unfair." The reason comes next: "Only because it completely destroyed the entire set."

There is a brief argument about the tag line. One of them remembers "Who's ready to party?" Another thought it was "y'all ready for this."

A real zipline mishap, as they remember it

Samberg does not pretend to have the news clipping in front of him. "Hugh Jackman had something I don't remember what it was where he came in on a zipline and it like went wrong." He calls it "a press event where he got hung up on a zipline or something." Someone asks if it is "a real thing." He says yes.

The Short does not name the event. December 2010 reports, including a New York Times ArtsBeat item and CBC News, described Jackman being injured during a zipline entrance at an Oprah Winfrey Show taping in Sydney. Samberg does not name that show, and this article does not treat his "press event" line as a confirmed identification of that taping.

Through the back wall of Update

Then he walks through the pitch. He wanted to "do a thing on update" in which Meyers, "as the update anchor," would introduce a comment from Hugh Jackman. "Offscreen you hear who's ready to party," Samberg says, "and then I was going to zipline in in studio 8H and crash through the back wall of update that would have been rigged the entire time to be a breakaway wall."

Meyers, in Samberg's retelling, asked the practical question: what would they do "the rest of update with a broken wall"? Samberg's answer was, "put it last." Meyers's answer, as Samberg quotes it, was, "We're not doing that."

Someone in the room puts the question to him directly: "Seth, why why do you why did you say no to that?" Meyers does not offer a long defense. "I don't know. There there was no more lines in the bit. It was just he comes smashes through the wall." One of the others adds that "it was y'all ready for this." Meyers treats that as a fine button anyway: "Yeah, that's a really good way to close it. All right, that's an update."

The used clip ends there. They do not say when the pitch was made, or whether any part of it was ever built.

FAQ

What is Andy Samberg's real name?

In a 2016 Time Out interview, Eve Barlow wrote that he "was born, as David A.J. Samberg"—he changed it to Andy at the age of five—quoting him as saying, "hippie mom was down." That name is not mentioned in the Short.

What was the Weekend Update idea?

Samberg wanted to zipline into Studio 8H and crash through a breakaway wall behind the Update desk, after Meyers tossed to a Hugh Jackman comment and an offscreen "Who's ready to party?"

Why did Seth Meyers say no?

In the clip, the first reason given is that it "completely destroyed the entire set." Asked again, Meyers says there "was no more lines in the bit. It was just he comes smashes through the wall."

Do they say the Hugh Jackman zipline story was real?

Yes. Samberg calls it a press event he does not remember in detail, "where he got hung up on a zipline or something," and agrees that it was "a real thing."