Netflix's 'Is It Cake?' Host Mikey Day Reveals His Secret to Detecting If It's Cake: 'I Definitely Know the Signs'

You can count on Mikey Day to keep you entertained, whether he's portraying a befuddled dad on Saturday Night Live or slicing through a fire hydrant-shaped cake on Netflix's Is It Cake?. The seasoned comedian has been delivering laughs on SNL for a decade, making him one of the longest-running cast members on the show, and his game show-style cooking series has been such a hit that he's gearing up for a fourth season. Even more exciting? It's been confirmed that Day is working on the upcoming live-action Rugrats movie.

I got to sit down with the Is It Cake? host and discuss his latest projects, including his new partnership with Dollar Car Rental and a surprising tip for discerning what's really cake.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

PureWow: Saturday Night Live recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, which is a huge deal. What is it like to be a part of that milestone occasion as a cast member?

Mikey Day: I mean, very surreal. It was a lot of pinch me moments, especially during the week of the 50th when we were rehearsing and getting ready for everything, and just the amount of famous people in one room was pretty staggering. It's still very surreal. I think I'll probably truly grasp the enormity of it years from now, but it's an honor to be just a part of that show's very legendary history. You know what I mean?

PW: Absolutely, you guys are such a talented cast. And you've been on the show for a total of 10 years. What would you say is the key to that longevity?

MD: What's great about the show, the way it's engineered, is that it's week to week, so you could have a bad week, and then after Saturday, it starts over. And then on Monday, it's a brand new week, so you're constantly moving forward and looking ahead to the next one. So you don't have a lot of time if you don't have the best week, or you don't have time to focus on your failures or celebrate victories you might have, you're just moving on, but it's fun.

I tend to have an ADD-type approach to things, where you get excited about something and then you get kind of over it quickly. So this show is perfect, because you write something, you work on it really hard for a few days and then it'll either be on TV or not, and then you're on to the next thing. So, in terms of me hanging around, I feel like the show is very suited for what I would consider my skill set.

As a whole, I think the show has been on for so long because it keeps changing with the culture, and every aspect of it changes, from new cast members to the direction of comedy and what the show's commenting on. I think it evolves along with the culture.

PW: What's your absolute favorite SNL sketch?

MD: There's a Will Forte sketch called "Spelling Bee" that is one of my favorite things, where he is in one of those spelling bee competitions and gets the word business, and he just he misspells it for like, three minutes straight, just saying the longest misspelled word of all time. It gets funny and then it kind of dips and then gets funnier. That's one of my favorite things that comes to mind.

PW: I grew up watching Rugrats as a kid, so I was thrilled to hear that you're working on the upcoming live-action movie. What can you tell us about it?

MD: [Streeter Seidell and I] wrote it a few years ago now, so we'll see what remains intact as it goes through the development process and such. I don't know a lot of the specifics, but I will say that we were also huge fans growing up, so we definitely stayed true to the characters, trying to take what everyone remembers and funneling that into a modern movie, rather than changing things completely. It's definitely still these characters, because the characters are fantastic. Even with the parents and the adults, we tried to keep what everyone loved about them.

PW: Who was your favorite character to write?

MD: Angelica was probably my favorite character to write for because, you know, she's Angelica. 'Babies!' So, yeah, she was fun. You know, she's the antagonist. At the end of the day, she has a good heart, but she's just a mean little girl that's fun to write for.

PW: Which Rugrats character did you identify with most as a kid?

MD: I'd like, I'd like to say Tommy, because he's the leader, you know, and he's pretty brave...definitely leaning more towards Chucky in terms of being afraid. I'd say a good balance. A little mixture. But definitely would want to say Tommy.