If laughter is the best medicine, Andy Samberg is here to heal us all. 

We sat down with the comedy powerhouse to talk about new film Hotel Transylvania 3. And, while we were picking the great man’s brains, we asked him to select a couple of his favourite sketches from his time at Saturday Night Live. 

So, if you’re feeling down, having a crummy week and in need a bit of escapism, let Dr. Samberg chase the blues away:

1. Great Day

“We did one called Great Day that I’m very proud of. It’s a psychotic musical number.”

2. Motherlover ft. Justin Timberlake

“There’s obviously Dick In A Box, and Motherlover. Those ones are very well regarded.”

3. I’m On A Boat ft. T-Pain

“Musically, maybe the best we ever did was I’m On A Boat.”

4. Two Worlds Collide ft. Reba McEntire

“We did one with Keenan Thompson called Reba that I’m very proud of. It’s pretty nuts and has a kind of Rashomon structure to it”

SAMBERG ON LANDING SNL

Samberg first attracted SNL’s attention when he starred alongside Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone in Lonely Island. “It was a strange sequence of events, I’d been doing stand-up for a while. About seven years, straight out of college. Me and Akiva and Jorma had taken a writing job for the MTV Movie Awards. It was our second year running, and the host the second year was Jimmy Fallon. He brought people from SNL to help out, and we were the fringe team.

“We all really hit it off. Jimmy really liked us. We wrote two of the big pre-tape pieces – you know, when they put the host in the movies? And wrote the opening Batman one and a Star Wars one. We were hanging out with Jimmy shooting those and, according to him, we had a great attitude and seemed happy to be here so he recommended us to Lorne Michaels.

“We all got hired – it was crazy. We definitely didn’t think we were in proximity to getting hired on SNL two weeks before it happened. It was all very fast.”

SAMBERG ON HOT ROD

Hardcore fans of Samberg, strap in: he’s not ruling out a return for cult favourite, Hot Rod. On bringing the well-intentioned stuntman back to life, he adds: “Anything is possible. 

“A movie that inspired us when making Hot Rod was Hot Wet American Summer, and now there’s been two seasons of that on Netflix.

“I wouldn’t rule anything out if there was interest.”

The campaign to bring back Hot Rod starts here.

Hotel Transylvania 3 is at UK cinemas from 27 July