The ‘Weekend Update’ Easter Egg You Might Never Have Noticed

Seth Meyers has something he really needs to tell us about tree frogs. In fact, quite a few former SNLWeekend Update” anchors do—if only they’d gotten the chance.

One benefit of a show like Saturday Night Live running for 50 years is the opportunity to give life to recurring Easter eggs. Over the years, SNL has incorporated a few hidden gags, like the backstage llama (which even makes an appearance in the new Saturday Night biopic). But another repeated bit in the SNL television universe may be harder to catch. Specifically: the saga of the “Weekend Update” tree frog, which is a joke Meyers carried over with him to Late Night.

As Meyers recalled on a recent episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, the bit originated back in the Tina FeyJimmy Fallon era of “Update.” A common conceit of the segment is having an anchor begin a news story, only to be interrupted by a surprise character or celebrity cameo. The thing is, that requires scripting a false premise of a story for the anchor to begin reciting before the guest arrives. That’s where the frogs come in.

“A migrating tree frog in the key was the signal—to anybody who cared to figure it out—that [‘Weekend Update’] was about to be interrupted,” Meyers explained. (The “key” refers to the graphic shown over the anchor’s shoulder during the segment.)

In 2002, the “Update” writers had to script such an interruption during Season 27’s Jon Stewart-hosted episode. During the news segment, Fallon cuts off his delivery of a joke when he gets a leg cramp, prompting Stewart to briefly take his place.

The joke Fallon was setting up? An anecdote about tree frogs, accompanied by an image of a tree frog over his shoulder. (Stewart’s own delivery of the tree frog setup is then interrupted by Fallon’s return.) 

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From that point on, SNL would have fun with that image. Whenever a “Weekend Update” anchor needed interrupting, the writers would set up a tree frog joke, using the same graphic. This gave eagle-eyed viewers the fun opportunity to get a few seconds’ heads-up on when a surprise walk-on was about to occur.

The tree frog would go on to make “Update” appearances through the next few iterations of hosts. 

In 2005, Fey began the tree frog setup again while co-hosting “Update” alongside Amy Poehler. In that case, it was Poehler’s predecessor Fallon interrupting the segment with a surprise cameo. (He had departed the show almost a year earlier.)

After Meyers replaced Fey, he continued using the gag. In 2007, Meyers had just launched into an anecdote about tree frogs when Andy Samberg crashed the segment as American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar.

It remained a part of “Update” during Meyers’ solo years, too. Like in 2012, when Kristen Wiig’s Lana Del Rey interrupted Meyers as he was explaining how “A new study shows that tree frogs…”

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A particularly memorable “Update” moment of the Meyers era came during the Season 38 finale in May 2013, when SNL bid farewell to departing cast member Bill Hader and his popular character Stefon. After Stefon ends his “Update” feature early due to an argument with Meyers, Meyers struggles to get through his next joke, ultimately abandoning it and running after Stefon. The joke? “A new study shows that tree frogs in the Amazon…”

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Meyers wound up leaving SNL in 2014 to host Late Night—and when he did, he took the tree frog with him.

One of Meyers’ recurring segments on Late Night, “Ya Burnt,” begins as a faux surprise each time, with the host cutting off a story he’s telling to pretend he smells smoke. While the bit dates back to 2014, the year Meyers first started on Late Night, Meyers decided to inject some SNL nostalgia into the bit a few years into its run. Since 2017, every installment has begun with Meyers telling viewers a story about “migrating tree frogs.”

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“This was stolen from my time at SNL,” he confirmed on The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.

While the graphic isn’t shown on “Ya Burnt,” the tree frog clearly remains on Meyers’ mind.

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