Please Don't Destroy is a comedy group in New York City consisting of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, who began collaborating as students at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. The group was originally founded in 2017 and based on an act titled ''Please Don't Destroy My Farm''. The troupe performed monthly comedy shows, appeared at the

New York Comedy Festival The New York Comedy Festival is an annual comedy festival co-founded by Jarrod Moses and Caroline Hirsch in 2004. The festival is produced in association with Comedy Central, the Huffington Post, and Carolines comedy club located at Times Squar ...

and produced sketch videos posted to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, they began creating shorter videos for

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. In 2021, the trio was hired as writers on ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...

'' (''SNL'') to produce prerecorded digital videos for the show's 47th season. ''Please Don't Destroy'' debuted on SNL on October 9, 2021. They recorded the song "Three Sad Virgins" with Pete Davidson and

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

. Herlihy is the son of former ''SNL'' head writer and producer

Tim Herlihy Timothy Patrick Herlihy (born October 9, 1966) is an American screen actor, film producer, screenwriter, and Broadway musical bookwriter. Films written or produced by Herlihy have grossed over $3 billion at the worldwide box office. He frequentl ...

, while Higgins' father is long-time ''SNL'' writer, announcer and producer Steve Higgins.

List of prerecorded sketches

Season 47 (2021–22)

Season 48 (2022–23)

Filmography

References

2017 establishments in New York City American comedy troupes Comedy collectives {{Saturday Night Live, collapsed