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The Andy Samberg Mummy on Seth Meyers' Desk Was a Gift from Colin Jost
Samberg and the Late Night Host explained how a 2020 sketch birthed the visual joke on Meyers' desk.
If you're a regular Late Night with Seth Meyers viewer, you've likely noticed the knickknacks on the desk Seth Meyers sits behind. There's the Stefon matroyshka doll, a rotating array of coffee mugs from NBC network affiliates, and, when you look closely, a small mummy statue with Andy Samberg's head and a talk bubble that says "My doink fell off!"
The desktop Samberg doll was inspired by a 2020 segment where the former Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor played a recently-awakened ancient Egyptian mummy, whose body parts begin to crumble as the interview goes on.
"I occupy a special place at Late Night with Seth Meyers," Samberg said to Meyers during an April 2024 PaleyFest panel celebrating 10 years of the show with Meyers at the helm. "There's a figurine of me on your desk with the iconic phrase, 'My doink fell off'."
Meyers obliged with an explanation of the doll's origins, and revealed that a fellow "Weekend Update" anchor created it.
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Why is there an Andy Samberg mummy on Seth Meyers' Late Night desk?
"We read a headline on CNN that said some ancient mummies had been disturbed — like they were digging, and they disturbed some mummies," Meyers said. "And then Mike Shoemaker, who is a producer of my show and was a producer for both of us on SNL said, 'If you were still at SNL right now, we could write a 'Weekend Update' feature where Andy was a disturbed mummy.'"
"And I said, 'We have a show! Why don't we just do it for our show now?' And so we wrote a sketch where you were a disturbed mummy, and then you added some Andy-sauce to it," he said.
"We sent you a really good mummy costume," Meyers continued. "Because you were in L.A., and we obviously film in New York, we FedEx-ed you the best mummy costume."
"Full — like good, with powder put on it and makeup and all this stuff," Samberg noted.
"And you were on Zoom, and when the Zoom screen came up, you had just wrapped your head in toilet paper," recalled Meyers. "Not only would you not fly out to do the bit, you wouldn't even do us the courtesy of putting on the super-expensive costume."
Colin Jost commemorated the mummy sketch with a doll
The figurine of Samberg's mummy that sits on the Late Night desk was made by Saturday Night Live's Colin Jost, who Meyers revealed was "so moved by the mummy, and was upset that his doink fell off."
"I should note, in case you’re wondering, one of the reasons mummies don't like getting disturbed? With the slightest movement, their doink falls off." Meyers explained.
"That's just something archeologists know," joked Samberg.
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"And 'doink' clearly feels like a modern word, but it's one that came back," Meyers joked. "So [Colin] made it, and then I put it on my desk. And the fun thing is, you know, obviously, NBC has censors and they're paying very close attention to the show — but it’s been like, three and a half years and we haven't heard anything, so it’s probably not coming."
Samberg reassured the Late Night Host, saying, "I think 'doink' is in the clear."
Additional reporting by Grace Jidoun.
