This year’s SNL50 anniversary special was one of the most star-studded televised events outside of the Oscars, with the likes of Kim Kardashian, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Cher, and Eddie Murphy all making appearances. But for a certain contingent of comedy fans, the most exciting celebrity sighting was former cast members Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney, who played singing-and-dancing groomsmen in a “Domingo” sketch. Who cares that Pedro Pascal and Sabrina Carpenter were right next to them? The boys were back in town!
Bennett and Mooney have been creating and performing comedy together for decades. They first teamed up in college, went on to form the sketch-comedy team Good Neighbor alongside Nick Rutherford and Dave McCary, and then joined Saturday Night Live in 2013. But since leaving the show — Bennett in 2021 and Mooney a year later — both comedians have branched off into different projects. In the past year alone, Bennett was in Superman and was outed as the most popular guy at SNL, and Mooney directed A24’s Y2K and toured a new album of original music. But there’s just something magical about the two of them together; no other duo could pull off a sketch like “Brothers.” Now, they’re breaking their trial separation with a new podcast for Headgum, What’s Our Podcast?, where every episode will be a very special episode. As Mooney tells it, “I think we were psyched about the premise that we don’t know what we’re doing, and we’re going to explore how to become better podcasters.”
How did this come together?
Beck Bennett: We were tossing around ideas, and we didn’t really have anything. We were like, We could start a podcast, but why would we be starting a podcast? Kyle had the idea that we could start a podcast where we were trying to figure out what our podcast was, and that guests would come on and give us an idea, and then we would give it a shot. That became what it was about.
Kyle Mooney: I finished at SNL the summer of ’22, Beck finished summer of ’21, and Beck and I started talking about the possibility of doing a podcast when I was in postproduction on Y2K. So that was summer of 2023.
What podcasts do you listen to?
K.M.: I listen to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Prince.
B.B.: Those are some super podcasts. I listen to Smartless, Hollywood Handbook, Doughboys, WTF, Las Culturistas, Office Hours.
K.M.: It seems like you’re always the first person to answer the question, I’ve noticed.
B.B.: In this interview?
K.M.: So far, yeah.
B.B.: You can always count on Kyle to make incredible, really interesting observations.
K.M.: I like all the podcasts Beck listed. Our friends have a podcast about theme parks called Podcast: The Ride, which I enjoy listening to. My wife is very good about listening to true-crime podcasts and history podcasts; I’ll get to hear those secondhand. But the fun thing about our podcast is that we don’t have to be experts, but we can definitely appreciate the hard work that goes into a great podcast.
I’m sorry about the whole “going first” thing.
B.B.: Now I’m nervous.
K.M.: I was just poking fun. It’s sort of the rapport of our podcast.
B.B.: No, I know. It’s just kind of fucked up.
K.M.: That’s fair. But also, if you think of it in terms of whoever’s reading this, “What’s Our Vulture Interview?” could be what you’re experiencing right now, because we don’t know the proper way to do it. Beck and I rarely do interviews together.
B.B.: We’re figuring it out right now in the moment, just like we’re figuring out our podcast. So please bear with us.
In your second episode, Marc Maron says he has a hard time telling when you are or aren’t doing a bit. Has this been something you’ve dealt with with other guests?
K.M.: It’s something we’ve encountered pretty consistently with every guest. Nobody has heard the podcast, so nobody knows what to expect when they come into the room. So, yeah, every episode is its own little beast, but I hope that people come in knowing that we’re very friendly and we’re ready to chat.
So you go to Headgum with this idea for a podcast about not having any ideas for a podcast. What was that conversation like?
K.M.: We pitched it to a handful of places, and Headgum was incredibly receptive in an awesome way. One of the cool things about the concept and developing it with them is that we don’t know the best way to present all of those things, so there was a development process of: How do we break this down? What portion of the show is the podcast-within-a-podcast that a guest pitches? What portion is the interview? Do we want to do an interview? How much of it is just Beck and me? So there’s this constant conversation of what this thing is, and they were really essential in the process of making it an actual podcast that seemingly is ready to be consumed. When we went in there, they were like, “Yes, we know these guys and we’re ready to work with them.” But there were also people who didn’t want to work with us.
B.B.: That’s true. If you’ve seen the Michael Jordan documentary, that was the best motivation for him: the people who didn’t believe in him. So we’re partnering with Headgum to make all those other companies feel bad about not wanting to work with us.
Is this your first collaboration since SNL?
K.M.: We’ve done little things. Beck did a voice on the show I did for Netflix.
B.B.: I did a voice in your movie.
K.M.: And we’ve collaborated in terms of being around each other and celebrating one another at birthdays. But this is the first real tangible thing that is equal parts both of us. We spent eight years together at Saturday Night Live. We got into SNL in 2013. We met each other in the fall of 2003, so that’s a decade prior to that. So that’s two decades where we’re working or being near each other fairly intimately. We shared an office throughout our SNL experience. Now we see each other fairly frequently to record, and also because we live in the same neighborhood and our kids go to the same school. But the beginning of the podcast is us catching up, and I know every podcast does that, but it feels organic and nostalgic and very sweet to do bits with your buddy.
B.B.: We shared a dressing room for seven years and an office for eight years. So just hanging out in the office and doing bits and making each other laugh was a very creative, natural process, and we miss that. It’s nice to be able to come together and create in that way that we’re used to, without having to do the full thing of creating a TV show or a movie.
How do you prepare guests for the podcast? Do they run their potential ideas by you in advance?
K.M.: The premise of the show is we don’t know what our podcast is, and the guest will come in with an idea for what our podcast should be about. We genuinely never know what it is. At the very top of the show, we’ll typically try to tell them, “We imagine you have an idea, but please don’t tell us yet. We want to talk to you for a little bit, and then we’ll ask you to tell us your idea.” Our producer, Anya, reaches out to the guests and has a conversation before they come into the room. We’ve recorded a few episodes recently where either the guest has several ideas, so we have to chisel it down, or they’re making it up as they go.
You’ve prerecorded a bunch of episodes. Has a guest ever brought an idea that was just totally unusable? What do you do in that situation?
B.B.: There was one where we both didn’t know what he was talking about. We were like, “Okay! We’ll go do that.” I don’t know if he knew exactly how he wanted it to be implemented. We were all on a different page. But that’s part of it. So even when that happens, it creates this mess that we have to deal with, which is comedic in its essence.
K.M.: Again, nobody’s heard or seen the show yet, so a guest can come in and think this will make sense. And then it’s like, Oh, no, we don’t know what to do with that. But like Beck said, it’s cool to try to maneuver it. Something comes out of it always. It’s just that we look like we’re not as smart as we should be.
B.B.: Doing a podcast when there’s so many podcasts — that meta take on it makes us comfortable with the idea of doing a podcast.
Who are your dream guests?
B.B.: Not necessarily my dream guest, but I think it would be really fun to have Lorne Michaels on. He’s a very interesting guy.
Do you think it’s something he would go along with?
B.B.: I don’t know. I think it’s a bit below his standards.
K.M.: Maybe that episode would be “15 Minutes With Lorne,” and it would be more of a standard interview with him. But yeah, I don’t know that he would do [Lorne voice] “My pitch is dogs that look like their owners.”
B.B.: That’s a good subject.
K.M.: Paul McCartney would be interesting. Crispin Glover would be fascinating. I wonder if he’s done a podcast. He’s a full weirdo.
Would you ever bring back old SNL characters of yours, like if a guest came in and said, “My idea is ‘Inside SoCal’ the podcast?”
K.M.: Yeah, I think the guest is always right in this scenario. If they come in with an idea, unless it’s something that is hurtful or incredibly offensive, we’ve got to be game. Whether it’s us doing “Inside SoCal” or Beck taking on his high-school role again as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, we have to do what the guest suggests.
B.B.: We really do. And I’d be happy to do both of those.
What is each of your favorite thing about the other as a podcast co-host?
B.B.: There are a lot of things I like about Kyle as a co-host: his silliness and ability to just goof around to be stupid, especially at the beginning when it’s just the two of us. And Kyle’s great at asking questions, so, at least right now, I rely on him to ask really good questions.
K.M.: Beck is the best dressed and best groomed of the hosts.
B.B.: Get out of here! No way!
K.M.: Absolutely. Beck is very earnest, and I think that is such a strong foundational part of the show. Also, I met Beck when we were freshmen in college, and Beck has always been able to relate to people more. I think I’m a little weird and a little … I don’t know that shy is the right word. In my own world, maybe. And I think Beck is much better at relating to everybody and opening himself up in a way that sometimes maybe I’m slower to do.
B.B.: That’s very sweet. Thank you, Kyle.
Do you have any grand ambitions about where this will go? Have you thought about doing the podcast live?
B.B.: I would like to get it to a point where we’re able to tour and do some live shows, and whether that’s having a guest or doing mini-versions where we take suggestions from the audience and try to do a couple, it would be fun to use this as a platform to perform live and get in front of an audience. I don’t do stand-up, but I miss getting in front of an audience. Initially, one of the ideas was that we would do ten podcasts, and then we would hear from our audience which one they want us to actually try to take a stab at for a while. We like the format as it is, so I don’t know if we’ll do that, but once an audience starts listening, I’m curious to see how they interact with it and how we interact with them, as far as getting suggestions and maybe trying things out. I’m not sure what that’s like, but that’s definitely something we’re both excited by.
K.M.: I love the idea of doing live shows and letting audience members potentially pitch podcast ideas to us. It’s fun for us that it’s ever-changing and we don’t know what the rules are yet. We’re sort of making them up as we go along.
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