Who

With his popular parodies of music videos and TV commercials, Samberg has become one of few bright spots on the otherwise hideously unfunny Saturday Night Live.

Backstory

A native of Berkeley and the son of a photographer, Samberg graduated from NYU before moving to LA with a couple of pals, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, in 2001. The three started filming short digital comedy videos under the moniker The Lonely Island, while Samberg did stand-up, appeared in commercials, and worked as an assistant on Spin City, where he showed the Lonely Island reel to his boss, who hooked Samberg and his buddies up with an agent. Pilots for Fox and MTV never made it to TV screens, but the trio did score a gig writing for the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, and met host Jimmy Fallon. He introduced them to Lorne Michaels and they joined Saturday Night Live in fall 2005—Samberg as a cast member and Taccone and Schaffer as writers.

Of note

With Lorne Michaels' exceptionally stale SNL suffering from atrophied ratings, Samberg and his cohorts were tapped to bring back a much-needed younger demographic to the show. The new kids proved themselves in December 2005 with "Lazy Sunday," a music video in which Samberg and Chris Parnell rap about Magnolia Bakery cupcakes and the Chronicles of Narnia movie—the skit became a massive YouTube phenomenon. In December 2006, Samberg pulled off another hit with "Dick in a Box," an R&B parody co-starring Justin Timberlake; losers nationwide were soon overeagerly quoting lyrics like "1) Cut a hole in a box 2) Put your junk in that box."

While Samberg's not a whiz with impressions, his nonsensical bits have brought some loony energy to SNL, even if the sketches he and the Lonely Island guys write are relatively one-note, like jokes about a horny hermaphrodite alien or people getting punched in the face repeatedly. And while his contract with SNL stipulates that he'll be on the show till 2012, he's had plenty of gigs on the side. Lonely Island was at the helm of 2007's Hot Rod, a farce in which Samberg starred as motorcycle stuntman. The flick got atrocious reviews and bombed at the box office. Never mind: There's a Lonely Island comedy CD in the works, and Samberg's done the lead voice-over on a 2008 animated movie called Space Chimps, produced by Barry Sonnenfeld.

Personal

Samberg, a rare SNL cast member with sex appeal, has been linked to Kirsten Dunst and Natalie Portman; he's currently seeing folky singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom. He rents an apartment in the West Village.

No joke

In fall 2007, the Lonely Islanders were filming a video in which they pretended to mug an old woman on the streets of L.A. Kiefer Sutherland (apparently confusing himself with his TV persona) was driving by and thought the mugging was legit, so he pulled over to stop the crime. The back of his head can be seen in the shot.