For some of Us who are chronically online, Andy Samberg was the first person who came to mind after Seth Meyers announced the death of his dog, Frisbee.
Meyers, 51, broke the news earlier this month that Frisbee, his beloved Italian greyhound, died at age 14. During the Tuesday, August 26, episode of “The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast,” cohosts Samberg, 47, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer asked how Meyers was coping.
“Frisbee passed away and it is very sad,” the Late Night With Seth Meyers host began. “As sad as it was, equally funny that there were multiple major news organizations that wrote articles about it that talked about how she was Andy’s archnemesis. … My kids kept coming over saying, ‘What is that?’ I’m like, ‘It’s another article about how your dog died.’”
Samberg joked, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have the privilege of being so inextricably linked to Frisbee’s demise [or] that good ol’ Fris would get so much love and coverage. I mean, what a dream come true across the board. … Like, is Frisbee breaking the net?”
Meyers conceded that his dog did, in fact, break the internet “a little bit.” He also pointed out that Frisbee “was worth more than just how much Andy f***ing hated her.”
ICYMI, Samberg’s yearslong feud with Meyers’ dog has been well-documented online, with some fans even making TikTok compilations of every time Samberg expressed his distaste for Frisbee. Last month, Meyers even got mutual pal Amy Poehler in on the joke by convincing her to prank Samberg with the (then-fake) news of Frisbee’s death on her “Good Hang” podcast. Meyers announced Frisbee’s (real) death via Instagram on August 19 — one day after Samberg’s birthday.
“The fact that also the news broke right around my birthday didn’t help things,” Samberg joked on Tuesday. “Look, I’ve grappled with how to handle this a lot. There was a stretch of time where I was like, ‘You know what, this is like a hot item right now. This might be Chris Rock refusing to talk about the slap till he gets paid for it.’ You know what I mean?”
Samberg later revealed that he learned about Frisbee’s death before the Instagram post went live, insisting he gave Meyers “a normal response.”
“It was absolutely exactly what you’d want for a friend,” Meyers agreed. “I also reached out and said, ‘Well, the awkward moment has finally arrived.’”
Meyers said he was “really proud” of how his friend committed to the bit until the very end. “I feel like I have been throwing hints out for about a year that she’s not going to live forever, and we were in her last 12 months, and you did not take your foot off the gas,” he added as Samberg joked that giving up on the Frisbee feud “would have been disrespectful to her, in a lot of ways.”
The Hot Rod actor did briefly put the bad blood aside to check in on Meyers’ kids. “Then once I was told that was all in order, I did fire back a couple things that were maybe mean,” Samberg said. “We were texting this whole thing [and] there was definitely a little discussion between us about how it was sad but also undeniably very funny that he had to have the conversation with me.”
When asked whether the idea of getting “another one of those creatures” had already crossed his family’s mind, Meyers hesitated. “I think it’s going to be a long break,” he said.
The Lonely Island trio then posed the possibility of cloning Frisbee. “I will say, we dug a hole and buried her, so I know where she is,” Meyers joked. “By the way, I loved Frisbee very much. At no point was I ever like, ‘I gotta get one just like this.’”
Despite his loss, there was one silver lining for Meyers after seeing the extensive coverage about Frisbee’s death. “It made me laugh and smile that her legacy was that my friend hated her for 14 years,” he said. “Like, it was also nice to be like, ‘Oh, my God, Andy and I have been friends for so long.’”
Samberg admitted that his feelings were “mixed up,” explaining, “My love for you and your family is now tied to my disdain for the dog.”
For their friend and former Saturday Night Live producer Mike Shoemaker, there’s only one way to give Frisbee the send-off she deserves. “[He] was saying that Frisbee should maybe, probably, be in the Emmys In Memoriam,” Meyers revealed. “But then Andy correctly pointed out … it would be extra bad if you forgot a really famous sitcom director, but then Seth’s dog was in it.”
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