Mikey Day Knows the Sweet Truth — but It’s Not Always Cake
When longtime Saturday Night Live favorite Mikey Day showed up at his 30 Rock office last year, he didn’t expect to walk into a shrine of teen magazine posters, Christmas lights, and a slightly mangled Kansas City Chiefs hat. But that’s exactly what his co-star Heidi Gardner left behind before her emotional SNL departure. Her goal wasn’t interior design — it was pure, good-humored embarrassment. “Anytime someone walked by, especially during the 50th season when celebrities were everywhere, I felt the need to shout, ‘This is ironic!’” Day laughed, recalling moments when even Tom Hanks popped by to take a puzzled glance at his wall of ‘90s nostalgia.
Fast forward to today — Mikey Day is balancing dual comedy empires: a decade as an on-screen performer for SNL (after first joining as a writer), and his run as host of Netflix’s delightfully absurd competition show Is It Cake? The series, which just dropped its spooky four-part Halloween special, earned loyal fans by turning one of the internet’s strangest obsessions — hyperreal cakes disguised as everyday objects — into mainstream entertainment. As Day puts it, the show might sound “silly,” but its impact is very real. “You wouldn’t think guessing whether a shoe or a purse is actually cake would be so satisfying,” he said. “But it triggers this primal part of your brain. You just have to know.”
But here’s where it gets oddly deep: what started as a quirky visual gag became a comforting family ritual. Day admits he never realized how strongly kids would latch on. “People would say their children had Is It Cake?-themed birthdays,” he said. “It’s almost like watching a magic trick — they see these bakers building illusions right before their eyes.” Despite joking that “kids are dumb” (especially when it comes to the thick, overly sweet fondant that coats the cakes), Day’s admiration for the culinary artistry behind every creation is clear. “It’s really sculpting, painting, and illusion rolled into one. You start seeing cakes differently — you start noticing edges, textures, shadows. It’s weirdly philosophical.”
As for the taste? “Fondant’s technically edible… just not enjoyable,” Day grinned. “You’ve got to dig through a sugary shield of modeling chocolate before you reach the good stuff.” And despite assumptions, he doesn’t spend his filming days in a sugar daze. “People always ask if I’m eating cake nonstop. The truth is, I probably eat less of it than anyone else on set.”
Behind the scenes, however, it’s intense. Contestants bake for as long as eight hours (sometimes across multiple days), transforming flour and butter into eerily lifelike replicas of gym bags, typewriters, and even human organs for the Halloween edition. “Everyone makes a heart or a brain at some point,” said Day. “It’s like a rite of passage.” The host himself gets detailed cutting instructions from bakers before the iconic “reveal” moment. Still, he’s had a few close calls: “Once, I almost sliced into the wrong prop — suddenly fifty people were screaming!”
The chaos, Day says, only heightens the fun. “I’ll wander around with a megaphone while they’re painting intricate details, and somehow, they’re still nice to me.” When asked how he fills those long baking hours, he confesses that half the time he’s improvising bits with contestants. “They capture some of that for the show. The rest is just us laughing at how ridiculous the job is. I mean, I’m cutting into cakes disguised as office supplies for a living — how did this happen?”
Even with his packed schedule, Day hasn’t let the cake craze swallow his SNL passion. “By the time I’m back at the studio, I’m usually caked-out,” he joked. Still, the Netflix hit occasionally sneaks into SNL sketches and promos. His writing partnership with Streeter Seidell continues too — their collaboration recently shone during the Emmys’ hit cold open, a ‘George Washington’s Dream’-style sketch featuring host Nate Bargatze. “We thought, what if Washington was reacting to the invention of television? It gave us endless material,” Day said. “We just had to include the line about the History Channel having no history.”
Beyond sketches and cakes, though, Day now occupies the role of seasoned veteran at Saturday Night Live — a detail that still surprises him. “It’s wild to think I’m one of the old guys now,” he laughed. “I try to make the new cast members’ first weeks fun, the way others did for me.” He compares the SNL environment to a “tour of duty” — chaotic, exhausting, but deeply bonding. “The first week always feels like school — new faces, new routines — and by week three, it’s family.”
And while he’s quick to laugh off the fandom that now surrounds his double life as comedian and cake detective, Mikey Day’s career seems to embody the strange beauty of both worlds: the precision of craft hiding beneath the mess of comedy. “It’s all about illusion,” he said, smiling. “Whether it’s a perfectly sculpted cake or a perfect punchline, you just hope when people bite into it, they’re surprised.”
Now here’s the debate worth having: Is Is It Cake? just innocent fun, or does it tap into something deeper about how easily we’re fooled by appearances — both on social media and in life? Do you think the show’s success says more about our love of dessert or our fascination with deception? Share your thoughts below — and yes, any questions?
