Mikey Day on Favorite SNL Sketches He's Written and David S. Pumpkins' Impact
The long-running cast member spoke to NBC Insider about his favorite SNL sports sketches, his family's soccer fandom, Lord Gaga, and more.
While Saturday Night Live’s Studio 8H has been dark since Lady Gaga’s March 8 episode, it’s quite a busy time for fans of mens’ and womens’ college basketball. NBC Insider recently caught up with SNL cast member Mikey Day, who’s currently starring in a March Madness-themed campaign for Great Clips alongside Kansas Jayhawks player Hunter Dickinson. The spots find Day touting the national salon chain's $10 off deal, and it's fair to say there's a noticeable height difference between the the ads' stars.
“Working with Hunter was awesome. He's 7 foot 2! I feel like a child standing next to him,” Day said of the NCAA player. “It's crazy — when you see basketball on TV, it just kind of looks like a bunch of people playing. But then you meet a basketball player and you're like, ‘my word, you are a tall human being!’”
Day joined SNL as a writer in 2013, becoming part of the cast in 2016. Since then, he's starred in over 600 sketches, known for standouts like "Beavis and Butt-Head," "Haunted Elevator," and "Washington's Dream."
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Below, Day shares some of his favorite Saturday Night Live sketches, explains how his wife and son shaped his own sports fandom, and talks collaborating with his “work wife,” SNL co-head writer Streeter Seidell.
NBC Insider: Congrats on your Great Clips campaign. What was it like working on the ads?
Mikey Day: I honestly, legitimately, loved it — and Great Clips gave me a haircut. I went out to Atlanta and shot with Hunter Dickinson, who was a delight, and he also got a haircut. He looked cooler than me ... maybe it's because he's younger? And a professional athlete?
Who are you rooting for during March Madness? Are you a sports fan yourself?
Day: I'm going all in on Kansas, because of my one basketball friend [editor's note: this interview took place prior to Kansas' first-round loss to Arksansas on March 20]. And I went to UCLA, so those are my two teams.
Usually I follow soccer, because my son is super into it, and my wife is Argentinian — I got into it because she’s a big Argentina fan. And my son plays.
Does your whole family watch the games together?
Day: Oh yeah. My wife and my son, they live and die by this team. So their anxiety when it's not going as well — or their elation when it goes well — is very infectious. But my wife will leave the room if there’s a big penalty shot.
Speaking of sports, do you have any favorite SNL sports sketches?
I always liked the "Game Time with Randy and Greg" ones, where it’d be a bunch of commentators and Bill Hader was clearly an alien.
And then I’m going to be gross and reference a sketch that I wrote alongside Streeter Seidell: Chance the Rapper plays a character named Lazlo Holmes who covers the Knicks for Madison Square Garden TV — and a reporter's dropped out, so they’ve sent him to cover a Rangers game.
I’m glad that you mentioned writing with Streeter Seidell, because you guys are known as frequent collaborators. How did that come to be — he joined the show the year after you first joined as a writer in 2013, right?
Day: [Former cast member] Nasim Pedrad and I shared an office, and she’d left after my first season. I found out, “you're gonna share an office with some guy named Streeter.” I'm like, what? But my name's Mikey, so our names together sound like a Nickelodeon show: Mikey & Streeter.
It was random, and that’s how the show works: You’re up late, and then we'd be like, 'sorry to bug you — do you think this is funny?' From there, just kind of worked. He’s my work wife, eleven years later.
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In terms of process, I’ve read that you guys were known for writing on Tuesday nights all the way through Wednesday morning. Do you still do that, or do you guys text back and forth all the time, or...?
Day: Since we still share an office, sometimes we'll sit down and think of ideas. Other times, we'll trade a draft of a script back and forth. Streeter is getting better at leaving and getting a little bit of sleep before Wednesday morning, but I'm still really bad at it. I have like, college term paper procrastination: Midnight is kind of when my brain is like, ‘okay, we need to start focusing here.’ I'd love to be able to get my work done at a reasonable hour — there's nothing that says you have to work all night. But sometimes the ideas just come when you're walking through the hallway and you see someone, you start talking. That's kind of the beauty of the place on Tuesday night. Y
You two also co-wrote “David S. Pumpkins” with Seidell and Bobby Moynihan. How does it feel to have created something so iconic during your time on the show? You've written a lot of popular sketches, but there was a David S. Pumpkins walking around Universal Studios at Halloween Horror Nights.
Day: Yes! That's when I was like 'okay, we did it.' I've made some sort of mark — albeit a mark on culture that is a strange man in a pumpkin suit, but it was awesome to see him there.
RELATED: The History of David S. Pumpkins
More recently, can you walk through how "Lord Gaga" came to be?
Day: God, it was so much fun. Streeter was just like, “has anyone ever done ‘Lord Gaga’? I'm sure within her fandom and online, people have been like ‘I am Lord Gaga!,’ but we just liked the idea of this man of English nobility being a literal lord and talking about his wife in old-school way: “She's into the arts, what a fun hobby.” And at the end, doing that run with Colin — it’s great how game he is to be teased so mercilessly. But you know, at the end of the day, he went home to his amazing wife, Scarlett Johansson.
As for [Lady Gag], she was so cool with it the whole time. She was laughing at the table read and after the show I was like, thank you for letting me play your fictional husband. I'd love to come on stage during one of her concerts at least once as Lord Gaga — “ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for my wife?”
Yes! Domingo got to go to Sabrina's concert, let’s make this happen.
Watch Mikey Day on Saturday Night Live at 11:30/10:30c on NBC and Peacock, streaming next-day on Peacock.
