Jenny Hagel and Amber Ruffin are staff writers on NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” and they showed up to the Comcast NBCUniversal House at Container Bar during SXSW this year. On the late night talk show, the pair is known for doing a segment called “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.” The premise is that the writing team sometimes writes jokes that Seth, as a straight white man, can’t tell in good conscience; Hagel is a Puerto Rican and a lesbian, while Ruffin is a black woman.
Photo credit: Jackie Ruth
The two decided to do something a little different at SXSW — they gave advice to the audience. Before their show started, the audience was given note cards and pencils to write down a question they’d like the women to answer. Once handed in, the questions were separated into four different categories: job advice, love advice, financial advice and dares (which were not actually questions, but dares for Hagel and Ruffin).
The comedy writers split their answers evenly between joking and helpful, while still making sure the audience knew they were not professionals in terms of advice-giving. They also kept telling the audience that both of them were older than they look.
At one point, Ruffin taught the audience a dance she called “Doin’ The Butt.”
Both women definitely erred on the advice side of things, even though jokes were thrown in. After all, careers and financial health are not things to be messed with (and love only is sometimes). They talked about how to deal with inappropriate bosses, how to get over someone after a breakup and more.
But the real fun was in the dares. Hagel did the worm, as well as something resembling a body shot. Ruffin also did a shot, and then told an embarrassing story from her youth.
It’s not hard to see why “Late Night With Seth Meyers” is such a funny show, with these two — and presumably more like them — writing for it. Don’t forget to follow Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel on Twitter to keep up with their smart, humorous insights.
Featured image credit: Jackie Ruth
Originally hailing from Pennsylvania, Jackie has called Austin home since choosing to attend the University of Texas, where she graduated with a degree in multimedia journalism. She loves spending time with her dogs, writing about pop culture in all its forms and spending time with friends – eating, drinking and doing trivia.