If dead dogs go to heaven, Andy Samberg might want to choose another everlasting abode.
Seth Meyers’s dog, Frisbee, has died at age 14, according to a post on Mr. Meyers’s Instagram. She was beloved to the Meyers family, the host of NBC’s “Late Night” wrote.
“R.I.P. to Frisbee, our O.G. I.G. who I was happy to go grey with,” Mr. Meyers wrote in a post on Tuesday about the Italian greyhound, featuring a photo of both of their graying locks. “She was at her best curled in your lap and patient when we dressed her up like a pilgrim. Thanks for 14 amazing years, girl.”
But the scrawny, nervous pooch was probably best known by the public as the target of Mr. Samberg’s disgust. Fans speculated that, somewhere, the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” actor was rejoicing.
“Andy’s birthday wish came true,” read one of the top comments on the Instagram post, speculating that Mr. Samberg, who turned 47 on Monday, might have wished ill of the dog on his birthday. (Mr. Meyers did not say exactly when Frisbee died.)
Mr. Samberg, whose friendship with Mr. Meyers dates back to their time on “Saturday Night Live,” developed what can only be described as a strong distaste for Frisbee from the moment she was dropped into his lap as a puppy, the two have said in interviews over the years.
“Frisbee was this big,” Mr. Meyers said to Mr. Samberg on “Late Night” in 2020, holding his hands at about the size of a bowling ball, “and we put her in your lap for a second, and you for real went: euhhhhh,” Mr. Meyers said, making a tossing gesture with his hands. “And she just, like, thumped onto the floor.”
Mr. Samberg claims to be a dog lover, but has, over the years, compared Frisbee to a rat.
“I have been walking home in New York, drunk at 4 in the morning, and seen rats I like more than Frisbee,” Mr. Samberg said.
Mr. Meyers, whose representative did not respond to questions about Frisbee on Tuesday, has conceded that “it’s not an unfair judgment.”
In a 2015 episode of “Late Night,” Frisbee took to the spotlight next to Cora, a champion Italian greyhound, and was rather overshadowed.
Cora showed off while Frisbee was cowering, her scrawny legs folded beneath her.
“Come on, Friz,” Mr. Meyers said, “don’t blow this for me.”
She scampered away from Mr. Meyers and into the arms of his wife, Alexi Ashe.
The long-running bit appeared to have gone both ways: In a 2020 post, Mr. Meyers said that Frisbee was completely uninterested in seeing Mr. Samberg’s movie “Palm Springs.” And in a post on Tuesday, responding to a headline about the feud, Mr. Meyers wrote that for what it was worth, “she also disliked him.”
Frisbee may not have been a natural showgirl, but she seemed at ease in costume, once donning a knit beanie with reindeer antlers and ears for a Meyers family Christmas card. (Mr. Samberg apparently scratched out Frisbee’s face on the card and sent it back.)
And in a photograph from Mr. Meyers’s Instagram post announcing her death, Frisbee was seen in a what looked like a Thanksgiving-themed photo shoot (a baby, also pictured, was dressed as a turkey). Frisbee wore a pilgrim outfit, complete with a hat strapped under her tiny canine chin.
Mr. Samberg’s loathing got others in trouble, too.
“Your husband is very unkind to my dog,” Mr. Meyers told the musician Joanna Newsom, who is married to Mr. Samberg, on a 2016 episode of “Late Night,” where she was promoting a new album.
But not everyone was fond of Frisbee.
The actress Ellie Kemper, who confessed to being unsettled by dogs, once said, “I don’t understand Frisbee — Frisbee isn’t what I think of when I think of a dog.”
Most recently, in a July episode of Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast, Mr. Meyers urged Ms. Poehler to prank Mr. Samberg by convincing him that Frisbee had died. During her later podcast taping with Mr. Samberg, she kept a straight face as she delivered the false news.
“Don’t even play,” Mr. Samberg replied, “’cause I’ll be so happy.” (A commenter wrote under the clip on TikTok: “His eyes literally lit up.”)
If Mr. Samberg, who did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Tuesday night, is prone to premonitions, things don’t bode well for him. In an MTV interview following the podcast, an interviewer showed him a Photoshopped picture of Frisbee with a speech bubble that read, “Go to hell, Samberg.”
He responded: “You know what? I will.”
Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news.
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