11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Seth and Josh Meyers Are Here to Poke Fun at Your Family Vacations
When Seth and Josh Meyers were kids, their family spent a week in Maine at a waterfront cabin, where their mother got bitten by a horsefly, developed a bad reaction and ended up in the emergency room.
'Her forearms looked like Popeye's,' Josh recalled.
'I remember spending the entirety of the trip in a room with a bunk bed that was a billion degrees,' added Seth, the host of a late-night talk show and a 'Saturday Night Live' alumnus.
These days, the brothers — both writers and comedians and the rare siblings who claim not to have fought over territory when they were young — mine similar vacation disasters for their weekly podcast, 'Family Trips With the Meyers Brothers.' They interview guests including comedians, actors, musicians and even Bill Gates, about their memories of childhood vacations, many of which went awry.
'Family trips are high-stakes affairs. We have expectations that these trips should be special. We go into them with the intention of making memories,' Josh said. 'And the further we get away from the doomed excursions, creepy hotels, car breakdowns, illnesses, bad weather and knock-down drag-out fights with our siblings, the funnier it all gets.'
We talked about the inception of their podcast, which turns two this month, aspects of childhood travel that they miss and what makes family trips, even disastrous ones, worth taking.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Seth: A family trip sort of stress-tests the family dynamic, both for the good and the bad. I think you really find out a lot about the people you're closest with when it's an away game.
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