Meet Please Don't Destroy, The Comedy Trio That Starred in 'SNL's "Hard Seltzer" Sketch

Season 47 of Saturday Night Live is off to a great start! However, you may have noticed that there have been a few changes to the cast. Since Season 46 wrapped, beloved cast members Beck Bennett and Lauren Holt have exited the series. Meanwhile, newcomers Aristotle Athari, James Austin Johnson (aka the new President Biden!), and Sarah Sherman have all arrived at Studio 8H.

The late-night sketch show also welcomed some new writers to its writer's room. If you caught the "Hard Seltzer" skit that aired during the Oct. 9 episode, you may have been wondering who those unfamiliar faces were. The three men in the sketch were new writers Ben Marshall, Martin Herlihy, and John Higgins. Together, they make up the N.Y.-based sketch comedy group Please Don't Destroy.

If you loved their sketch, keep reading. Here's everything we know about Ben, Martin, and John, and their new gig on Saturday Night Live.

The sketch opens on Martin and John as they’re working in the SNL office. In need of a late-night pick-me-up, Martin opts for a hard seltzer. John asks him what kind he chose. "Just a J.C. Penney," he answers nonchalantly.

John, thinking that he may have misunderstood, picks up a can from the pack and notices it is Men's Jackets-flavored.

Ben then enters the room and notices his friend’s J.C. Penney can. "Oh you drinking JCP's?,” he asks, as he shows off his own box of Jiffy Lube Seltzers. John is still unable to wrap his head around these outlandish seltzer varieties.

Ben and Martin explain to him that a lot of brands are releasing their own variety of hard seltzer. They start calling out names like Exxon, Verizon, and even Dr. Ricardi, who is Martin’s dentist.

John, worked up over the absurdity of the drinks, jokingly asks: "Does the desk f--king have one?" Seconds later, he discovered a can in the desk drawer and decided to give it a try. “It’s pretty good,” he says, surprised, as the boys all go in for a cheers with their drinks. The sketch ends with an ad for Desk hard seltzer.

Please Don't Destroy is a N.Y.-based comedy group. According to Vulture, the boys all met while studying at NYU and founded the group in 2017. Since coming together, they've combined their comedic talents to work on film and TV projects for Comedy Central, Universal, and Sony. They've also written and performed their one hour of sketch comedy at the New York Comedy Festival, Moontower Comedy Festival, and Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles.

But the boys are most popular for their skits on social media. Ben, Martin, and John have written and filmed a number of funny sketch videos for TikTok and Instagram. Their silly clips have actually caught the attention of some big names in comedy, including SNL's Heidi Gardner.

"Watching them, they reminded me of when I was a teenager, and it was like the first time I saw [the sketch group] Stella or the first time I saw Jack Black. And I was just like, 'Holy s--t. I could watch this all night long.' I almost felt embarrassed of how much of a fan I quickly became," Heidi told Vulture.

Comedian Patton Oswalt has also been retweeting their videos on Twitter.

Among their many hilarious sketches, their bit on the vaccine was one of their most popular. In the video, Ben tells Martin and John that he finally got the COVID-19 vaccine. When they ask him which one he got, they're caught off guard when he answers "Dumbrekka" and explains, "It was the cheapest one, like $300 or something." He then lists off a bunch of side effects of the vaccines like “expelling a ton of black bile."

Despite the absurdities of the "Dumbrekka" vaccine, Ben explains he's relieved that "at least it wasn't the Johnson & Johnson vaccine," then passes out.

As it turns out, Martin is the son of comedy writer and actor Tim Herlihy, who was a writer for SNL from 1993 through 2019, according to IMDb. Meanwhile, John is the son of Steve Higgins, who has been writing and producing for SNL since 1995. Steve is also currently the announcer and sidekick for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, per IMDb.