The showrunners and writers of some of television’s most-watched shows, including “The Hux,” “Nobody Wants This” and “Julie Duty: Company Retreat,” took to the stage at the Writer’s Room’s Variety Night: The Comedy Series on May 7 in Los Angeles to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at each of their humorous hits.
This year’s panel, moderated by Variety’s Michael Schneider, included Oren Uziel (Spider Noir), Celeste Huey (The Burbs), David Stassen (Running Point), The cast included Liz Tussillo (2007), Eva Anderson (2017), Erin Foster (2017), Lucia Aniello (2017), and Chris Kula (2007). “Jury Duty: Company Training Camp”
The creators spoke about their experiences working on their shows and their unique processes for writing and producing adaptations of existing IP. In the case of “Spider Noir,” which focuses on an otherworldly Spider-Man, creator, co-showrunner, executive producer and writer Uziel said, “It’s like the guardrails have been removed.” “I was free to ignore them as long as I had respect for them…I don’t want to spoil them because they’re important characters,” he added.
For Best Medicine, a remake of the British show Dr. Martin, showrunner and executive producer Tussillo was tasked with taking an international format and giving it an American twist. “It was about finding a balance between what is edgy for American television,” Tussillo said, “because the British are fine with being really mean and somehow they don’t seem mean.”
“Margo’s Got Money Trouble” is based on a novel by Luffy Thorpe, and while books are often difficult to adapt, executive producer Anderson described Thorpe as “the coolest type of novelist I’ve ever met in this process.” “She basically said, ‘My book is finished. It’s published. Take all these ideas and make something else,'” Anderson said. “And she took a step back.”
A unique advantage of television is the ability to expand upon small plot points within a novel. “Since we had eight episodes, one of the things we were able to do was take one sentence from the book and expand it into an entire episode. We basically created a Las Vegas episode that happened off-screen. In the book, you just hear that some characters went to Las Vegas, and Margo wasn’t invited.”
Huey, the creator, executive producer and writer of “The Burbs,” created an entirely new world for the show, but the team paid homage to the original 1989 comedy-horror film on which the show was based. “We were also able to film in the original cul-de-sac where the movie was filmed, recently made famous as Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives. It’s truly an iconic location,” Huey said. She said it was a “really big responsibility” to bring such a beloved work to the screen, but said her previous experience working on “High Fidelity” had given her a roadmap. “I applied the same thing: creating my own story, my own characters, while respecting the DNA of the original work.”
In a less traditional sense, executive producer and showrunner Stassen talked about how Running Point, which is loosely based on a real-life incident with Los Angeles Lakers executive Jeanie Buss and her siblings, departs from the original. “This is a comedy,” he said. “We have to move quickly. We don’t want to get bogged down in the details of who’s on the board and who owns how many shares. So we were trying to make it our own at this point.”
Kula, the executive producer and writer of “Jury Duty” Season 2, played a key role in the show’s success. It remains to be seen what season 3 will be like, but he reflected on how “horrifying” every day on set was. “You felt the fear that today could be the end of it all. Someone could say the wrong thing, someone could see it on camera, some factor could unravel all the work we’ve done,” he said. “So when it all culminated and we got to the final day of the big finale where the hero steps up and saves the company, my adrenal glands were pumping that day and I woke up three hours before call time. It was a risky thing to do, and I knew there would be no second takes. It was like nothing I’d ever done before, and I’m sure there never will be.”
Foster’s own relationships were the basis for “Nobody Wants This,” and even as the show continues to diverge more and more from her real life, Foster, the creator, executive producer and writer, spoke about how “having a North Star” “helps.” “I learned that about acting. When I started making ‘Nobody Wanted This,’ my intention was not for anyone to imitate me or my sister or my husband, but the actors really wanted someone to see them,” she said. “Kristen (Bell) and Justin (Lupe) are always listening to my sister and my podcast, and in their heads they’re always trying to figure out our rhythm.” She also joked that when she’s locked in the writers’ room, “they always want to say, ‘What was the last fight you and Simon (Tichman) had?'”
After the panel discussion concluded, Aniello, co-creator, director, executive producer, and writer of “Hacks,” spoke about the ending of the series. The fifth and final episode of the show’s final season is scheduled to air on May 28th.
“I’m so proud of the work we’ve created with these guys. I love them so much and I’m really, really sad that I won’t be able to work with them anymore,” she said. “In terms of the tradition of the show, it’s just how fulfilling it is to work on it with your friends…I mean, I got to work on the show with two of my best friends. I was able to make a lot of new, really good friends that will really be a part of my life forever, and that feels really special.”
