Yes, Please Don’t Destroy Are Still at SNL

We’ve received several notes from readers asking whether Please Don’t Destroy are still at Saturday Night Live for Season 50.

It’s a reasonable query given that we’re now three episodes in and the trio have yet to appear on-screen. Rest assured, however (or not, depending on how you feel about them): Please Don’t Destroy are still very much with the show.

Though they’re best known as SNL‘s in-house comedy troupe, Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy are also writers on the show.

In fact, several of this season’s most memorable pieces so far have been PDD productions, including this week’s “Charades With Mom” (co-written with Ariana Grande and Bowen Yang) and last week’s “Mile-High Burger Challenge” (co-written with Ceara O’Sullivan).

Martin Herlihy was also credited individually as a co-writer alongside Dan Bulla and Mike DiCenzo on this week’s “Weekend Update” Oasis segment.

Although they’ve faced some steep competition for film unit time so far this season, expect to see new Please Don’t Destroy shorts from the trio as the season chugs along. Also keep your eyes peeled for a brand activation featuring PDD and Allstate’s “Mayhem” character that’s expected to air at some point over the coming weeks.

Please Don’t Destroy dates back to 2017 when the comedy trio first began performing live sketch shows and posting them to YouTube. During the pandemic they began producing short videos expressly for social media, which led to their hiring at SNL in 2021. (It didn’t hurt that Herlihy and Higgins both happen to be offspring of legendary SNL writers Tim Herlihy and Steve Higgins.)

Over three seasons they’ve produced 34 shorts for SNL. For Season 49, they were added to the show open for episodes when their shorts air. In the fall of 2023, the trio made their feature film debut in Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, which was released on Peacock.

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