Justin Timberlake recently sat down for a plate of chicken wings and a gamut of hot sauces for an episode of Hot Ones. During the popular online video segment, the singer revealed the origin story behind the viral 2006 Saturday Night Live digital short D*ck In A Box.

More than a decade later, D*ck In A Box is still one of the most popular digital shorts that came from SNL and the comedy trio Lonely Island, which features Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer.

Timberlake revealed that when he hosted Saturday Night Live for the second time in 2006, executive producer Lorne Michaels told him that he needed to do something with Samberg (who was an SNL cast member at the time) and Lonely Island because they were all about “song and dance” and “comedy.”

This was the first time Timberlake met Sandberg, and he said that they immediately hit it off. However, the Lonely Island and Timberlake were struggling with coming up with a concept for a video.

In the middle of the week, they finally came up with an idea about “a duo of guys who are still stuck in a time, in a certain style: silk suits, the herringbone chains, and meticulously sculpted facial hair.” Still, even though they had the idea for the look, they struggled with what those characters would do.

“Finally, Jorma [Taccone] says, ‘What if we do the old popcorn in the movies prank?’” explained Timberlake. “He was like, ‘You know the whole d— in the popcorn.’ I was like, ‘That sounds super creepy, bro!’ To which we then said, ‘Yeah, that’s totally appropriate for two guys who are completely misled about what’s appropriate.'”

After they rushed to write the song and shoot the video – which went into the early hours of Saturday – the FCC showed up and told them they couldn’t use the song or video because of the word “d*ck.” However, they would be okay with the video if they bleeped the word, which is what they did.

“I think the irony of that is, I think the funnier version of that is the bleeped out version,” said Timberlake. “I fully believe that that idea wouldn’t have been seen all the way through if the big wigs had known what we were doing.”

Advertisement

Justin Timberlake was also asked during the interview to rank his own albums from best to worst, and FutureSex/LoveSounds was his top pick, followed by his debut album Justified.