The Lonely Island is an American comedy trio, formed by Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer in Berkeley, California, in 2001. They have written for and starred in the American TV program Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Andy Samberg is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He is a member of the comedy music group The Lonely Island alongside childhood friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. Samberg was also a cast member and writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2012, where he and his fellow group members are credited with popularizing the SNL Digital Shorts.
Incredibad is the debut studio album of the American comedy troupe The Lonely Island, released on February 10, 2009, through Universal Republic Records. Composed of writers and childhood best friends Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, the album consists of hip hop-inspired comedy songs and skits with a satirical slant on traditional hip hop culture.
Jorma Christopher Taccone is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, and musician. He is one-third of the sketch comedy troupe The Lonely Island, with childhood friends Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer. In 2010, Taccone co-wrote and directed the SNL spinoff film MacGruber, which was his directorial debut. He directed his second feature alongside Schaffer, the musical comedy Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which he also co-wrote and co-starred in with Schaffer and Samberg.
"Lazy Sunday" is a single and short film by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island. It was released on December 17, 2005, when it premiered on episode nine, season 31 of Saturday Night Live as the troupe's second Digital Short. Primarily performed by Andy Samberg and fellow cast member Chris Parnell, the song and accompanying music video follow the two comedians as they eat cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery, buy snacks at a convenience store, and smuggle the food into a Sunday afternoon matinee of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Akiva Daniel Shebar Schaffer is an American actor, filmmaker, comedian, and musician. He is a member of the comedy group The Lonely Island along with childhood friends Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. Schaffer began his career with The Lonely Island making videos for Channel 101. In 2005, Saturday Night Live hired the trio, with Schaffer joining as a writer. In their time at SNL, The Lonely Island pioneered the digital short format, creating some of the most popular sketches of all time, including "Lazy Sunday", "I Just Had Sex", "I'm on a Boat", and "Dick in a Box". After SNL, Schaffer went on to direct movies including Hot Rod, The Watch, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. The Lonely Island has made albums such as Incredibad, Turtleneck & Chain, and The Wack Album. Schaffer also produced a number of TV shows and movies, some of which include MacGruber, PEN15, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and Palm Springs.
An SNL Digital Short is one in a series of comedic and often musical video shorts created for NBC's Saturday Night Live. The origin of the Digital Short brand is credited to staff writer Adam McKay, who created content for the show in collaboration with SNL hosts, writers, and cast members. The popularity of these segments exploded following the addition of The Lonely Island to the show, and it is to them that credit is given for ushering SNL "into the age of digital online content in a time when it needed to tap into that relevance more than ever." The Lonely Island's digital shorts were originally recorded with consumer grade digital video cameras and edited on personal computers. It is typical for the show's hosts and musical guests to take part in that week's Digital Short, and several shorts have included appearances by celebrities who were not scheduled to appear in any of that episode's live sketches.
"Dick in a Box" is a song by the American comedy group The Lonely Island featuring American singer Justin Timberlake. The trio—Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone—co-wrote the song with Timberlake, Katreese Barnes, and Asa Taccone. Barnes and Asa Taccone co-produced it with Jorma Taccone. Saturday Night Live (SNL) creator and producer Lorne Michaels asked Samberg to write a musical sketch for the 2006 Christmas episode with Timberlake, who was returning as both host and musical guest. Samberg developed the concept with other members of the group before working with Timberlake on December 14. They recorded the track around midnight and spent the next day and a half filming the corresponding music video.
Blizzard Man is a recurring sketch by Andy Samberg on the American television program Saturday Night Live. The sketch features Samberg as the title character who is brought in to recording studios to assist musicians with an in-progress song, only for them to find that his musical ability is limited to a cheesy parody of serious rap music. Despite this, the sketch always concludes with the artists recording with him anyway. Guests stars for the sketch in the past have included Ludacris, T-Pain, P. Diddy, Common, and 2 Chainz as themselves and Tim McGraw and Robert De Niro playing fictional characters.
"Like a Boss" is a song written and recorded by comedy hip hop troupe The Lonely Island and released on their debut studio album Incredibad. The song is a parody of the song of the same name from Slim Thug's debut album Already Platinum. The song is narrated by a businessman who describes his increasingly outlandish daily activities as "the boss".
"Jizz in My Pants" is a SNL Digital Short which aired on Saturday Night Live on December 6, 2008, and YouTube on the same day. It serves as the music video for the first single from the Lonely Island's debut album, Incredibad. The video stars the Lonely Island members Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and, briefly, Akiva Schaffer, and also features guest appearances by Justin Timberlake, Molly Sims and Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
"I'm on a Boat" is a single from The Lonely Island's debut album Incredibad. It was also featured as a Saturday Night Live Digital Short. The song features R&B singer T-Pain. The song, produced by Wyshmaster, is a parody of many rap video clichés, especially the music video for the Jay-Z song "Big Pimpin'." The music video reached number one on YouTube in February 2009 and was number one on the US iTunes music video chart. The song was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 52nd Grammy Awards. The Lonely Island has also performed the song live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with Black Thought filling in for T-Pain. The trio also performed an altered clean version for a "Classroom Instruments" segment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The song went platinum.
The discography of American comedy music troupe The Lonely Island consists of three studio albums, two soundtrack albums, twenty-four singles and thirty-six music videos. Group members Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone began creating live skits, comedy shorts and music parodies together in the early 2000s, having met the previous decade, during their high school years. The Lonely Island later caught the attention of television producer Lorne Michaels, who was impressed by their material. Michaels subsequently hired Samberg, Schaffer and Taccone as cast members and writers for his live sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Two musical shorts created by the group for the show, "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick in a Box", gained popularity on the Internet and garnered much media attention.
"Motherlover" is the first sequel to "Dick in a Box" by the Lonely Island, also featuring Justin Timberlake. It debuted on Saturday Night Live as an SNL Digital Short on May 9, 2009. The song finds the two ballad singers singing of their desire to have sex with each other's mothers as the ultimate tribute to Mother's Day. Set five months after the events of "Dick in a Box", the video opens with the balladeers being released from jail, only to be faced with the quandary of what to get their respective mothers for Mother's Day.
"I Just Had Sex" is a song by American comedy hip hop group The Lonely Island featuring American singer Akon and producer DJ Frank E. It was released as the first single from The Lonely Island's second album, Turtleneck & Chain, released in May 2011. The video, featured as a Saturday Night Live digital short, stars Akon and The Lonely Island members Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and briefly, Akiva Schaffer, with guest appearances by Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and John McEnroe.
"Jack Sparrow" is a song by American comedy troupe The Lonely Island featuring singer-songwriter Michael Bolton. The song and music video debuted on Saturday Night Live as an SNL Digital Short on May 7, 2011. The plot follows the troupe inviting Bolton to work on a new hip hop track, in which the members rap about meeting at a club and taking women home. Bolton ruins the group's song by instead singing choruses about the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and its primary protagonist Captain Jack Sparrow, but also with references to Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, Scarface and Jerry Maguire.
"3-Way " is a song recorded by American comedy music group the Lonely Island, featuring American singers Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga. The R&B and new jack swing track was written by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Timberlake, while produced by the Futuristics with further production from Asa Taccone and Ryan & Smitty. It appeared as an SNL Digital Short on May 21, 2011, in the episode of the sketch comedy television series Saturday Night Live, which saw Timberlake and Gaga as the host and musical guest, respectively. She commented that Samberg and Timberlake were nervous about presenting the idea to her. The song was released as a single on May 24, 2011, three days after the broadcast.
The Wack Album is the third studio album by American comedy hip hop group The Lonely Island. Recorded in Los Angeles and New York City with producers including TODAY, DJ Nu-Mark and Asa Taccone, it was released on June 7, 2013 by Republic Records. The album reached number ten on the US Billboard 200 and topped the Comedy Albums and Rap Albums charts. "3-Way ", "YOLO", "Spring Break Anthem", "I Fucked My Aunt", "Diaper Money", "Semicolon", "Go Kindergarten" and "Spell It Out" were released as singles.
Natalie Portman is an Israeli-American actress and filmmaker. She made her film debut in Luc Besson's action thriller Léon: The Professional, which starred her as the young protégée of a hitman. She followed this by appearing in Michael Mann's crime thriller Heat (1995), Ted Demme's romantic comedy Beautiful Girls (1996), and Tim Burton's science fiction comedy Mars Attacks! (1996). Three years later, her supporting role as the precocious, responsible daughter of a narcissistic mother played by Susan Sarandon in the drama Anywhere but Here earned Portman her first Golden Globe Award nomination. In the same year, she played Padmé Amidala in the first of the Star Wars prequel trilogyStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which brought her international recognition. She reprised the role in its sequels Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005).
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a 2016 American mockumentary musical comedy film directed by Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone and written by and starring Andy Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer. The trio, collectively known as The Lonely Island, also co-produced the film with Judd Apatow and Rodney Rothman. Sarah Silverman, Tim Meadows, Imogen Poots, Joan Cusack, Maya Rudolph, and Chris Redd appear in supporting roles.
