Breaking Down Mike O'Brien's SNL Digital Shorts
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Who is Mike O'Brien and what is his connection to SNL?
We're also joined by Mike O'Brien. Hello, Mike. What's up, guys? I'm somber, too. Yeah, I feel like you're laid out a real what not to do. Sorry. All right. So, Mike, this is very exciting. You did a series of short films at SNL, most of which I realized when I went back to watch were after I left. But I was there when you got hired. What year did you start at the show?
2009 was when I got the Seth Meyers call. But jumping back real quick, I was flown out from Chicago in 2004, waiting to go in and do an in-studio audition next to a young Yorma. and we were chitchatting and talking about calling our parents or something. Do you have any recollection of it? It'd be a book.
Oh my God. The minute you actually said it, but I was so nervous. I was probably between vomiting when I talked to you. But as soon as you said it, I was like, that's right. Yeah. I have no idea where that was because it was not in 8H. No, we're it's such a bummer to like have the experience of auditioning for the show and then not get to at least have been on the stage at age. Yeah. Yeah. We were in some side room, some shitty side room.
Some big empty room with the auditor sitting even further away than when I came back in 2009.
How did you do? How was your audition? Awful.
Same. I was going to show them what an artiste from Chicago is all about. you did it years later at one point i i did improv oh no i got out of guinness book of world records and i flipped and i said tell me when to stop and i'll try to break that record and they weren't saying stop i kept going all the way through and finally tina was like she probably said stop like please stop
She was like, stop. You built in a failstaff, which is you did a thing so terrible that you knew you'd get him to say stop at some point. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Oh, my God. Yeah. Good times. That is very bold. But it's interesting you said that because I am going to jump ahead. I was not in the decision-making team in 04, so I don't have the same recollection as you coming through then. But I remember going to IO with Lorne in the lower room at the old IO when we were doing a showcase or we were seeing a showcase and you came out. I think the nice part of this is you did not learn your lesson. But Lauren sort of came around to appreciating what you're doing. Do you remember that bit you used to do about how you were going to come out and play the spoons?
Yeah, it was a guy I was teaching spoons. And all I remember about it was that it was based on my freshman college roommate who would play guitar with headphones on and the amp plugged in. So it was not disturbing us. But what he didn't know is when he started playing speed metal, he'd go like this.
And so I was a spoons guy who couldn't help but make those noises, I guess, or whatever. But you dragged a chair to the front of the stage. Lauren and I were pretty close to the front of the stage. And you're doing this spoons bit. And it was very esoteric because I also feel like most other people that night, which probably would have been the advice I would have given you, did a way more classic SNL audition. Yeah. You did the spoons thing. You know, the moral of the story is one, your instincts were right. And two, it's a real credit to Lauren because I had known you. I was rooting for you to do well. You were doing the spoons thing, which I thought was very funny. But seeing it through Lauren's eyes, I definitely thought, well, not going to happen for old Mike. And then we left. And I remember Lauren saying, you know, I think there was something to the spoons guy. Yeah. And he really did sort of see.
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