He’s staying on as “Weekend Update” anchor for now, preparing a team for his “Late Night” takeover in February and has been spending the summer doing his standup tour.
Today, Seth Meyers’ animated series “The Awesomes” makes its debut on Hulu.
It’s a series full of voices provided by “Saturday Night Live” friends about a group of secondary heroes, led by Meyers’ character. It all came from the Meyers and longtime fellow “SNL” writer Michael Shoemaker, who have long shared a love for comics.
“We’re both huge comic book fans,” Meyers said at a session at the TV Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills Wednesday. “When I started on ‘SNL’ in 2001 and Mike worked there, one of the first things we did together was walk
down to Midtown Comics in Times Square, because we found a shared love of that. “Also, ‘SNL’ was like the first time I had like — in my life had enough money to buy all the comic books I wanted. So it was really exciting.”
“And Seth was the first friend that I knew who actually liked comics,” Shoemaker said. “I liked comics, but it was a solitary experience. But then when he came, he said, ‘Oh, you know, I read these. I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
Included in the cast are Ike Barinholtz of “The Mindy Project,” Rachel Dratch, Bill Hader, Taran Killam, Bobby Lee, Emily Spivey and Kenan Thompson with guest stars in the first episode along by “SNL” cast members Bobby Moynihan, Nasim Pedrad and Cecily Strong. The Hold Steady provide the theme song.
As for his work in planning for his jump to “Late Night,” Meyers repeated pretty much what he told me earlier this summer, that they were hiring people and kicking around ideas.
He’ll be back at “SNL” for at least the first half of the season as well.
“The nice thing about ‘The Awesomes’ now is we’re pretty much through the work on it, thankfully. Because there’s obviously going to be less and less time.”
“And in the middle of it all,” Shoemaker said, “Seth decided to get married this summer.”
“Yeah,” said Meyers. “Nothing like telling your fiancee, ‘I’d love to do a cake tasting, but I have to go to Comic-Con.”