August 23, 2014 11:25 am

This Sunday, Neil deGrasse Tyson has a “Conversation with Seth Meyers”

Is there a science to comedy?

It’s a subject that StarTalk Radio has tackled before, with guests like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Macfarlane.

In fact, comedy is “baked into our DNA” and part of our show’s formula.

There are plenty of shows that are focused exclusively on science, but the StarTalk Radio formula combines comedy and science, celebrity and scientist, to create a show that is unlike most others.

As I said, we’ve looked at the science of comedy before, most thoroughly in our episode, “A Conversation with Dan Aykroyd” where both Dan and comic co-host Chuck Nice talk with Neil about improvisation, stand-up and sketch comedy.

In this week’s episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about what makes good comedy with another Saturday Night Live alumnus, Seth Meyers (who is also hosting the 66^th Primetime Emmy Awards this Monday night).

Seth was on SNL for 12 seasons, 8 of them as the show’s head writer, so, like Aykroyd, his opinions on what’s funny are worth taking seriously.

Especially on political comedy, which Seth mastered as the anchor/co-anchor of SNL’s Weekend Update. Seth talks about the infamous Sarah Palin skits, which he wrote (along with on-the-fly brilliance by Tina Fey) and which even included writing some surprising lines for Palin herself.

Neil and Seth also talk about how Seth has brought a little bit of math into his current gig hosting NBC’s Late Night, on which Neil was a guest and reconciled with the dwarf planet Pluto, via his regular “Venn Diagrams” and “This Week in Numbers” bits. Plus, Seth talks about playing a time-stopping super hero in The Awesomes on Hulu.

This week’s episode might not be about black holes or exploring the furthest reaches of the universe, but if you’re interested in exploring the world of funny, we’ve got a great show for you.

You can listen to “A Conversation with Seth Meyers” this Sunday, August 24, at 7:00 PM ET on our website, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and SoundCloud.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up.

–Jeffrey Simons