What is comedy these days? It was also a hot topic among the comedy nominees for last week’s “Night in the Writer’s Room: Awards Season Edition.” This year’s panelists received praise from shows ranging from “funny but dark” and “dark but funny” to “funny but emotional” and “crime procedural but funny.”
Perhaps the biggest headline on this front was CBS’s “Elsbeth.” Hours earlier, the network had announced it was pulling out of the drama competition to compete in the comedy category for most of its upcoming accolades, including the Golden Globes and Best Actor Awards (formerly SAG). If you’re wondering why, you obviously haven’t watched “Elsbeth.” It may be a procedural focused on solving a few murders, but it’s also very entertaining, with star Carrie Preston’s eccentric former lawyer at the helm.
“When[The Good Wife and The Good Fight creators]Robert and Michelle King made Elsbeth, and they asked me to be showrunner, Robert said, ‘I love how you always lean into the comics.’ It’s meant to be funny,” said Elsbeth executive producer Jonathan Tolins. “We just changed the category, because when we started, we didn’t know exactly what we were. We offer procedurals, and we also do mysteries, which is really interesting.”
Tollins participated in a comedy panel on “Night in the Writers Room: Awards Season” with executive producer and showrunner Jeff Astrof (NBC’s new comedy “Stumble”) and others. Greg Daniels and Michael Corman (Peacock’s “The Paper”). Alfred Gough and Miles Miller (Netflix’s “Wednesdays”), Michael Waldron (Hulu’s “Chad Powers”). Moderated by Variety’s editor in chief, TV, Michael Schneider, the producers discussed the show’s origins. Four of the five shows that took to the stage were from existing IP. The panel discussion also included stories about how people have created alternative schools and businesses in the real world.
Much of the talk focused on tone and how to strike the right balance between jokes, emotion, and character development.
“I think what I wanted was a tone that you can’t quite pinpoint,” Waldron said of “Chad Powers.” “I loved that the show started out as a farce, something silly. By the end, our plan was to go to hopefully unexpectedly dramatic, dark, emotional places. In a sense, we tried to have it all. You can do absurd comedy, corny jokes and all that, but can you also make people cry? That felt like a big challenge.”
“I think it’s a great way to keep people off balance and not expecting the joke,” said Daniels, who perfected the art of mixing comedy and emotion on shows like “King of the Hill” and “The Office.” They’re not 100% sure that’s what they want to do. I think there’s a comedic reason for doing it. But that’s also the way life is. It’s not always good.
Similar to “The Office,” spinoff “The Paper” also utilizes the mockumentary format to explore emotions. This time, the main characters are the staff of a dying local newspaper in Toledo. It’s a twist that Astrof also tries out in “Stumble,” a story about a fired cheerleading coach trying to rebuild his career. “I love this format,” he said. “There’s a million jokes out there. I’m just looking for the one that hits!”
Speaking of tone, “Wednesday” is a dark show with plenty of humor in the title character’s sarcastic, mean-spirited but witty remarks.
“It’s just a mix of tones,” Goff said. “She’s a lot of fun to write. She’s also a character that you can be honest with because there’s a procedural detective part to her. But she’s not doing things for the same reasons that a normal teenage detective would. We also incorporate a lot of visual humor.”
Miller added: “I have a coffee table book by Charles Addams from The New Yorker on my table in the writer’s room that I look at for inspiration, and it’s surprisingly modern! His vision is so spot on and so timeless. Netflix doesn’t offer traditional network notes, but we’re getting great network notes. Some executives don’t like anything to do with death!”
“Wednesday” is an IP based on “The Addams Family,” but this season’s show also utilizes stop-motion animation in the style of director and executive producer Tim Burton, making it an IP.
When the topic turned to the origins of the IP, Tolins said he was nervous about taking a character like “Elsbeth” from “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” but appreciated having a base of knowledge to expand on the character. “I think IP issues just give you something to dig into and something to start with, rather than a blank page.”
“Chad Powers” is based on a segment from Eli Manning’s ESPN series “Eli’s Places” and began as a gag when Manning wore a costume. “Glen Powell and I have been friends for a while, so we wanted to work together,” Waldron said. “I think this story came to us because we were two guys in town who were college football fans. We got on the phone and said, ‘What I know you can’t do is a show about a guy with a prosthetic leg. ‘And Glenn was like, ‘But what if we could?’ It was impossible. When I started thinking about how impossible that was, it really lit up.”
“The Paper” was born out of Daniels’ desire to write about a different workplace, perhaps with a slight connection to “The Office.” (It was star Oscar Martinez, after all.) Daniels currently has an overall deal with Universal TV, which also produced “The Office,” so the connection is easy.
Daniels was working on another project with Corman when the idea for “The Paper” began to take shape. “He asked me if I would be interested in working on a show about newspapers,” Corman said. “I immediately said ‘yes’. He explained the idea and a week later said it would be about ‘The Office.'” I had already signed on, but I didn’t know it would be scrutinized on every level, and I didn’t know the expectations would be involved. ”
Daniels added, “There was some pressure on how it would be received, but other than Oscar, we didn’t repeat any themes or characters. We stayed close to the spirit of the show.”
“Stumble”, on the other hand, is an original idea created by Astrof and his sister Liz Astrof, but with some help in the background. Monica Aldama, star of the Netflix reality series “Cheer,” also lends her expertise as an EP on the comedy.
“This is a great addition to the team,” Astrov said. “I’m very wary of producers who don’t write the script, but I knew I needed her expertise. The show started when my sister and I were watching ‘Cheer,’ and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be really funny if this was the worst college in America?’ We left it at that for a few years, and then I called Monica. She gives it legitimacy.”
On the “Night in the Writer’s Room” stage, “Chad Powers” produced the least number of episodes, with only six episodes in season one, while “Wednesday” produced eight seasons in its first two years. “Elsbeth” has generated the most productions of any revived broadcast show, with 20, and “Stumble” could reach that level of success as well. The Paper produced 10 episodes in season 1, and season 2 will likely follow a similar order, but Daniels and Corman would be happy to produce more episodes.
Waldron quipped, “I think six episodes is hard enough. I don’t know how they’re going to make more!”
So what happens to “Stumble,” “The Paper,” “Wednesday,” “Elsbeth,” and “Chad Powers”? The big question in “Stumble” is whether Courtney Potter (played by Jen Lyon) can turn this cheer team into winners and take them to the Daytona Cheerleading Championship. “It’s giving them the right obstacles and giving them little wins along the way,” Astrof said, but added that Aldama thinks the “Stumble” cheering team “will never actually make it to Daytona.”
At the end of Season 1 of “The Paper,” the staff won several journalism awards, but don’t think that means Toledo’s truth tellers have recovered. “We certainly wanted to end the season with some encouragement,” Koeman said. “That doesn’t make the newspaper’s chances of survival any easier, but we wanted to give the characters a sense that what they’re putting into this might lead to the realization of a very unlikely dream.”
“Wednesday” ended season 2 with several cliffhangers, including what will happen to alpha werewolf Enid (Wednesday’s roommate) and Aunt Ophelia being found alive and locked in the basement.
“It’s always fun to push yourself into a corner and figure out how to get out of it,” Goff said. “But yeah, Aunt Wednesday is coming and now she has to try to save Enid.”
As “Elsbeth” continues for a third season, Tollins said he is excited to share the show’s Nov. 20 episode, starring guest star Dianne Wiest as a nun, and this year’s Christmas episode, which depicts a performance of the deadly Nutcracker.
And then there’s “Chad Powers,” who is currently busy working on Season 2. Waldron and Powell said they have three seasons of the show in mind.
“We’re talking about it like a trilogy. As we’re talking about a trilogy, the second installment will be about the villain, the enemies coming together,” he said. “We bring in an antagonist and we put romance and everything in there. Glen Powell is fine, even if Chad Powers isn’t. Oh. And there’s a lot of nudity with Glen. We talked about that.”
