John Higgins
2 min read
John Higgins (born November 14, 1995, Montclair, New Jersey) is an American comedian, writer, actor, and producer. He grew up in an entertainment family: his father Steve Higgins is a longtime producer and writer for Saturday Night Live and the announcer of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and his extended family includes actor Chris Elliott and actress Abby Elliott. He attended New York University's College of Arts and Sciences, where he was part of the Hammerkatz sketch comedy troupe, and graduated with an English degree in 2018.
At NYU, Higgins met Ben Marshall and Martin Herlihy and the three formed the sketch group Please Don't Destroy in 2017. After the group went viral on social media, all three were hired as writer-performers on Saturday Night Live in 2021, where they produced a steady stream of acclaimed short films and sketches. The trio leveraged that momentum into a Judd Apatow-produced film, Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, released on Peacock in 2023. Higgins left SNL and Please Don't Destroy in September 2025 to focus on acting.
In Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016) Higgins appeared as the Baba Booey Shouter, credited as Johnny Higgins. The character is a bystander who shouts "Baba Booey" during a mayoral press conference addressing the ghost outbreak. Director Paul Feig, a Howard Stern fan, wrote in the reference to Baba Booey, the nickname of Stern Show executive producer Gary Dell'Abate.